Lagos Residents To Sue EKEDC

Residents of Onitiri area
of Yaba in Lagos have vowed to drag the Eko Electricity Distribution Company (EKEDC) to court if the firm continues with what they termed cheating and day light robbery on them.
A letter by their counsel, Ayo Opadokun and Co, and addressed to EKEDC, alleged that a lot of injustice had been meted out to the residents of Abiodun, Akanbi and Lawani Streets of Onitiri in the past one year.
The letter read in part “our clients have informed us that in the last one year, the EKEDC has given different make-up stories for its epileptic supply of power and unfair and unrealistic billing system. There are times when they don’t have any supply for weeks and when it is temporarily restored, the unstable supply has destroyed their electronics gadgets and other electrical apparatus. The company, as usual, will unjustly bill them for power not used.
“Our clients have been denied metres in the last one year because they  have refused to pay unreasonable and unfair price that they have been verbally billed to pay that the EKEDC officers will not give them in writing the bill for the supply and installation of metre, yet they are regularly given crazy bills to pay as the company continues to claim that the bills were in accordance with the reading of the old metre usage.
The letter said, the residents have resolved that they would no more pay any bill until the power firm supplies and installs new metres for them and until there is stable and regular power supply.
According to the letter, “our instruction is to ventilate the residents’ grievances against your company’s further deliberate acts of misperformance and unfair billing by filing an immediate action in the court of law if there is no positive response from EKEDC”.
Meanwhile, the residents last week, stormed the premises of the company in Marina, Lagos to further express their anger over the issues of epileptic power supply and crazy bills.
The Tide gathered that the residents who besieged the company premises in large number, accused the service providers of continuous exploitation, especially for service not provided them.
They lamented that apart from subjecting them to darkness, the situation has frustrated their businesses, and also damaged their electrical equipment as a result of fluctuation.
The Head of Corporate Communication of EKEDC, Mr. Godwin Idemudia, told newsmen that it was untrue that residents of Onitiri had been in total darkness for six months.
Idemudia, who explained that the company was at the moment distributing the lowest tariff to its customers and assured the aggrieved residents that EKEDC would look into the issue raised and give them urgent attention that might prevent legal action.