Residents of at least seven communities in Kwara State’s Ilorin East Local Government Area are complaining about the constant power outages that have been happening there for more than 18 months.
According to The PUNCH, in the council area, the impacted communities were Oke-Oyi, the headquarters of Ilorin East local council, Agbeyangi, Oke-Ose, Panada, Badi, Adelu, and Oloro.
According to head of the Oke-Oyi Community Development Association, Alhaji Ahmed Seriki, the areas have been facing power outages for the past year and a half.
He did, however, call on the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company to restore power to the area following an 18-month power outage.
In an interview journalists in Ilorin on Monday, Seriki decried the situation and appealed to IBEDC to urgently address the issue.
“We have made several visits to Babaoko, Sango, and Challenge offices of IBEDC in Ilorin and they told us to buy Cables and we contributed N500,000, but we didn’t see any positive result. We have been in a blackout in our area for almost two years now,” he lamented.
He said, “Many business people relocated to other towns, while those that could not are languishing in abject poverty.
“We urge the appropriate authorities, particularly the state Governor and the IBEDC, to restore the power outage in the town. The power outage has paralysed socio-economic activities in this community,” Seriki said.
The association’s secretary, echoed this sentiment, Jamiu Oladokun, saying the neighbourhood once purchased cables to aid with the reconnection of the power grid.
However, Mr. Oladokun claimed that the endeavour was fruitless.
“All the hospitals in Oke-Oyi are complaining about the huge amount of diesel and petrol they buy to power their generators and other necessary equipment. We have made several meetings with the IBEDC officials at Baboko and Sango in Ilorin, to the extent that we contributed money to procure the damaged materials, yet it was fruitless,” he said.
The secretary characterised the circumstance as intolerable for the locals.
A resident, Jimoh Yewande, pleaded with the authorities to save them since it’s simple for thieves to operate in the dark.
When contacted, Corporate Affairs Manager of IBEDC, Olori Busolami Tunwase, said that the company would look into the specifics of the malfunction that had an impact on the local electrical supply.
“If the people of the communities have reported in our office, we will investigate the nature of the faults to know what is really wrong and we will correct the faults and restore electricity to the area,” she said.
