Residents Protest Five Months Power Outage, Insecurity in Ondo

Fidelis David in Akure

Angry residents of Irese town in Ifedore Local Government Area of Ondo State yesterday protested against an eight months power outage in the community.

The residents, particularly the youths of the town, trooped out in their large numbers to barricade the main roads for several hours, thereby impeding vehicular movements.

The protest forced residents to hurriedly close their shops, while the aggrieved residents lamented that the community had been in total darkness for lack of power for five months.

They berated the authorities of the Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) for being insensitive to their plight.

A resident of the community, Ms. Ifeoluwa Olomofe, said the lack of power, which enveloped the community for long, had increased the level of insecurity thereby necessitating the protest.

She explained that the five months power outage had adversely affected their businesses, especially the artisans, in the community.

Olomofe said: “For close to five months now, the residents of Irese community have been in total darkness, a situation that has paralysed local businesses while some were even shut down and heightened insecurity in the town.

“Many of us cannot work as there is no electricity to run our business as artisans. How do we now feed our family as those who are supposed to give us jobs or contracts cannot do that again since we have no electricity to work?

“So, we have to barricade the road with benches and tables and make this bonfire to draw the attention of the BEDC and the government authorities to our plight.  As it is now, we would not open the road until our plight is addressed because we are suffering and there is no development here. They should listen to us.”

While reacting to the protest, the spokesman for the BEDC, Akure branch, Mr. Michael Barnabas, said the transformers in the community were damaged by vandals who stole some oil from them, noting that the issue would be resolved soon.

Barnabas said: “The truth of the matter is that the transformers in the community were vandalised, and we have provided five drums of oil for a replacement to show how committed we are to restoring electricity to the town.

“It is not that we are not aware of the challenges they are facing, but very soon we will replace the transformer, so we will just appeal to them to be patient with us, as we didn’t abandon them. We are taking steps to address the issues.”