Hon. Timothy Owoeye, the speaker of the Osun State House of Assembly, ordered the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC) to restore power to the Ife North state constituency on Wednesday.
He emphasized that the state Assembly cannot continue to watch as the people of the state are thrust into darkness without finding a long-term solution.
At a meeting in the assembly complex, Owoeye declared that the legislators will not abdicate their constitutional role by allowing people’s rights to electricity and meaningful life to be violated.
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He said, “It is a known fact and law that It’s not the responsibility of electricity consumer or community to buy, replace or repair electricity transformers, poles and related equipment used in the supply of electricity.”
Mr. Akin Ogunleye, Regional Head of Osun IBDEC, told legislators that the five-month power outage in Ife North Local Government Council was caused by a damaged power transformer that will cost N90 million to repair.
He added that the distribution business had done all possible to resolve the power outage, believing that the issue was within its capabilities, until it discovered that a whopping figure of 90 million Naira, which the company could pay, would be necessary.
Ogunleye noted that due to a lack of funds, the firm is unable to accept full responsibility for restoring power to the impacted villages in the local government at this time.
He said, “when we were contacted on the power outage, we got to work thinking that it was a minor thing that we can fixed only to find out that the coil of the transformer had gone bad.
“The bill we got for the repair of the transformer was around 28 to 35 million Naira, experience had thought us that it is not the best to repair but replace with a new one which is in the region of 90 million Naira which IBDEC can not afford”.
Following a motion by Hon. Lekan Olatunji regarding the power outage in Ife North Local Government Council, the Osun House of Assembly summoned the Managing Director of the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company IBDEC, the Nigerian Electricity Regulation Commission (NERC), and the Federal Competition and Consumers Protection Commission (FCCPC) last week.
Earlier, Hon. Lekan Olatunji, the assembly Chief Whip, emphasized the importance of electricity as a vital public utility that every citizen should have access to. He accused the distribution company, IBEDC, of poor service delivery, which had left several communities in the local government frustrated and resorting to self-help.
He went on to say that, despite private firms taking over energy distribution, they were only concerned in invoicing and collecting tariffs, not in providing or repairing the equipment needed to generate the tariff.
“It is indeed a major milestone towards restoring electricity in Ife North State constituency and addressing the unsatisfactory attitude of the electricity distribution company to the citizens of our State,”
The Speaker adjourned the meeting till 26th of October for IBDEC to come up with a solution template.
