Residents of Erunwen community in Ikorodu comprising of eighteen Community Development Associations with over four hundred thousand people have cried out over erratic power supply to their community for over seven years now.
To this effect, representatives of Community in their large numbers stormed the entrance gate of the Ikeja Electric Distribution Company Headquarters at Alausa, Ikeja to demand immediate installation of a functional transformer to the community.
Speaking with newsmen, Spokesman of Erunwen Community, Mr Ayodele Adeyinka said they have written several letters to the customers service and their local Business Unit without yielding positive result.
He noted that the Community representatives have also met with the Company Technical Officer, CTO, last year who promised to look into the situation but lamented that over two months after that nothing has been done.
Mr Adeyinka appealed to Ikeja Electric PLC to urgently restore electricity to their community, alleging that they have lived without steady power supply for more than seven years”.
Members of the community have made several visits and lodged complaints with the electricity distribution company with no meaningful action to address the situation.
Despite repeated meetings with officials of IKEDC, no solution in sight for restoring power”.
“The prolonged power outage has negatively affected businesses, security, and daily living conditions, forcing many households to rely on use of generators and solar, even students go to school with rough and unironed uniforms which have psychological effects of the students as they cannot go for outdoor competitions due to that”.
The residents are now calling on the management of the company to intervene promptly and resolve the issue, stressing that their patience has been stretched by years of waiting without improvement.
One of the traders in the area, a 60-year-old woman, Mrs Fausatu Idowu, described how the situation has affected her livelihood and that of her family.
She said unstable electricity supply has made trading difficult, noting that she sells soft drinks and other goods while her younger sister deals in frozen fish.
According to her, a recent power failure caused her sister to lose an entire stock of fish, forcing them to throw goods away and invest in solar power just to stay in business.
She noted that residents still receive electricity bills despite the irregular supply, which she said sometimes lasts only about an hour per day, with appeal to IKEDC to provide a functional transformer and ensure steady electricity, stressing that the community is exhausted from years of unreliable service.
However, efforts to get an official response from the company were unsuccessful as of the time of this report.
On his part, Chairman Joint Erunwen Community Development Forum, Mr Olaniyi Maxwell Olowosoki, also complained about bad States of some inner roads in the community noting that during rainy season, flood takes over the road.
While noting that communal efforts have been put in place by residents through purchase of machineries to grade the road and compactor but they cannot afford putting asphalt on the road to tar.
He commended the House of Representative member in Ikorodu, Mr Babajimi Benson and urged him to fulfil his promise of rehabilitating some roads in Erunwen for residents to have more dividends of democracy.
Written by Yemisi Dada/Lawrence Gefu