Yusuf Oketola
RESIDENTS of Aduramigba-Jericho area of Osogbo, State of Osun, have sought the intervention of the State Government to end their one-month blackout as a result of faulty transformer.
According to the residents, there is need to procure a new transformer for the community’s electricity to be stable.
The residents told OSUN DEFENDER that the community had been sharing a transformer with Onibueja, a neighbouring community for the last two years.
They added that Aduramigba-Jericho residents have been unable to raise fund to get transformer for the community.
It was gathered that Onibueja community disconnected electricity supply to Aduramigba-Jericho as a result of breach of monetary agreement.
OSUN DEFENDER noted that each house in Aduramigba-Jericho were billed the sum of N30,000 by Onibueja community before allowing them to connect to the transformer.
In an interview with a resident in the area, Habibat Olajide, she stated that the community could not afford the price of a transformer which made them to be soliciting the government’s assistance.
Olajide stressed that some businesses in the community are now dead as a result of the blackout while sighting her own example as frozen fruits seller.
She said: My community used to share transformer with Onibueja, a community close to us. When we first got here, most houses paid a sum of N30,000 to connect electricity. But as years runs out, we have more houses here and we decided to form our own community, though we still shared transformer with them.
“We decided to stand on our own mainly because they don’t partake in building our community, what is important to them is to just take our money and don’t render any development.
“For almost two years now, we have been rationing the electricity at night. It is usually two-day on and one-day off because they said the transformer is weak and we were living with it like that.
“At some point, we decided we are not paying Onibueja community again and just used our money to develop our own community because we have lots of bad roads and so many poles to be bought.
“Last year was when we decided to stop paying them but they later agreed to work things out with us. Unfortunately, they didn’t. We sent our balance to them and yet nothing was done, so some month ago we made final decision not pay them anymore and as such they decided to drop our lines 26 days ago; and here we are, no electricity and no hope.
“The price of a transformer is too much for us to bear, that is why we are soliciting to the government to please get us a transformer.
“We have contacted our lawyer and he had serve a letter to the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC), informing them of the situation so as to stop bringing bills”.
