Niger Communities Thrown into Darkness

Laleye Dipo in Minna

 Not less than 40,000 households in Paikoro and Lapai Local Government Areas of Niger State have been thrown into blackout following the vandalisation of facilities of Power Distribution Company.

According to report, this is the third time that the incident would be happening within a spare of six months in the two LGAs.

Investigations reveal that 33 transformers in Lapai LGA were vandalised while the feeders pillars supplying both local government areas in Paiko were also stolen by suspected  criminals.

As a result of the incident, most of the households now depend on generators for power supply for their domestic and other usage.

The FM radio station in Lapai has also been off the air for more than six months now while the general hospitals in the two towns as well as the IBB University Lapai are also depending on generators.

 It was learnt that the power company staff in the two local government areas have been withdrawn, an indication that the company is not prepared to rescue the situation in the communities

A community leader, Alhaji Mohammed Yaro Paiko, pleaded with the state government and the power company to “rescue us from this undeserved situation,” saying: “Most of our businesses are now grounded.”

According to Paiko, “Men of the underworld are now seizing the opportunity to invade our homes, especially in the night.”

 When contacted, the Public Relations Officer of the power company in Minna, Alhaji Mohammed Adamu, confirmed the incident, saying it has become a regular occurrence “for our installations to be vandalised.”

Adamu said on three previous occasions, the installations were stolen, “we went there and replaced them to give the people power; only for this latest incident to happen.

“Where do we get the money to replace these items all the time?” he asked, before saying: “The communities should find ways of protecting such infrastructures to stop them from being illegally tampered with. The people should own these facilities.”