Residents of Oshodi, Mafoluku, Shogunle and Ewu-Tuntun communities staged a peaceful protest at the Ikeja Electric (IE) Okota business unit on Wednesday, demanding an end to estimated billing and the provision of prepaid meters.
The protesters, who carried placards with various inscriptions, expressed frustration over exorbitant bills in spite of frequent power outages.
Some of the inscriptions read: “No to estimated billing”, “No to metre selling”, “All crazy bills must be reversed “, “No to epileptic power supply”, among others.
The spokesman for the protesters, Mr Abdul-Rauf Olowora, said that the failure of IE to give electricity prepaid metres to customers had brought untold pains to many homes and businesses.
Emphasising the need for transparency and accountability in billing practices, Mr Olowora said: “In some areas in Mafoluku, there is no light and the funniest part of it is that when the IE officials are to bring their bills, it will be N150,000, N183,000, N200,000 per building, without power supply.
“We do not want this any more. We are here to tell them that enough is enough. We cannot be staying in darkness and still be paying for darkness.
“We don’t want to see MD 1 (what it means we do not know) in our communities. We do not want anything called Band A, Band B, or Band C in our communities any more.
“This is a tactic to continue to shortchange the common man in Nigeria. We are saying no, we do not want it,” he added.
Ronke Ajibade, another community leader, appealed to the Lagos state government to intervene and address the persistent issue of estimated billing.
“These people, (IE), want to kill us. The IE wants to receive all the proceeds of our labour every month. Enough is enough,” Mrs Ajibade said.
Speaking after a meeting with the management of the Ikeja Electric, Mr Babatunde Faleye, the Chairman of the four communities, urged the company to prioritise the provision of prepaid meters to resolve the ongoing dispute.
Emphasising the importance of a swift and effective solution to prevent escalation, he said, “There is a problem brewing in the communities and our people are tensed now. If IE does not want a problem to start, the way out now is to get us metres.
“This is generally agreed as the way to go. We hope that IE lives by its words after our meeting today,” Mr Faleye added.
The chairman said that the communities had agreed to explore vendor financing as a means of securing the meters for every household, and that IE had promised to respond to their demands next week.
He said that the protesters remain resolute in their fight for fair billing practices and reliable electricity supply, and charged IE to uphold the law in issuing the metres.
“The provision of metres should be the sole responsibility of the electricity distribution company to measure their products we are buying.
“It should be made available to the customers without pay,” he added.
(NAN)
