ANAMBRA: UKPOR COMMUNITY PROTESTS STAGGERING SIX-YEAR BLACKOUT
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The Ukpor Community, headquarters of Nnewi South Local Government Area of Anambra State, on Friday, embarked on a protest over more than six years of power outages in the town.
Trooping out to the office of the Enugu Electricity Distribution Company in the area in their numbers, the protesters were seen chanting solidarity songs and displayed placards with varying inscriptions.
Some of the inscriptions read, “EEDC give us prepaid metres”, ”Small scale businesses in Ukpor have all closed”, “EEDC help our students, give them light to read at night”, and “No to EEDC darkness in Ukpor”, among others.
The people charged EEDC to return their transformers, which they allegedly took away for refurbishment.
The Chairman of Ukpor Electricity Consumers Committee, Mr. Nkwadochukwu Onwughalu, accused EEDC of deliberately blacklisting the community for over six years.
He said that EEDC disconnected the community from the industrial line and took away five transformers from the community and later returned two.
Onwughalu also accused EEDC of bulk billing electricity consumers in Ukpor, amid vandalism of their transformers.
He said, “The administration of Willie Obiano intervened in the power crisis in Ukpor and put us in the industrial line but immediately he left office, EEDC disconnected us.
“We have five transformers that got bad, EEDC claimed they were taking them away to refurbish.
“They only returned two and took the remaining three and installed in another community, leaving us in darkness.”
Another protester, Mr Valentine Ifechigha, said that it was unacceptable that the community would be paying for services they did not enjoy.
Ifechigha, who is the leader of Ukpor Zone 3, said that all they were asking for was the return of the transformers taken away from the community.
“Return the community to 33kVA line, which was installed in 2017, and issue prepaid metres to individual consumers, among other things,” he said.
He said that they would no longer pay electricity bills since they were not getting supply.
Mr. Pius Onyeanusi, who was into sachet water production in the area, said he had shut down his factory as a result of the prolonged power outage.
Onyeanusi said, “I had 25 workers but they have stopped working because we are no longer producing.”
The EEDC Business District Manager, Evaristus Obeta, who received the protesters, said he would escalate their grievances to the company’s management.
When contacted by newsmen for further comments on the issues raised by the protesters, especially the alleged removal of their transformers, he declined.
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