Oyigbo Youths Responsible For Power Outage In PH – PHED

The Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Plc, PHED, has blamed the power outage experienced in Port Harcourt metropolis, the Rivers State capital on the actions of Oyigbo youths who barricaded the Transmission Station in Afam Community.
PHED in a press statement signed by the Manager, Corporate Communication of the company, John Onyi, said the “Oyigbo youth also carried out the same habitual action on the 14th August 2020.
“The August action also culminated to total darkness in the Garden City, forcing a meeting of all stakeholders including Rivers State Ministry of Power on 27th August with a view to resolving the imbroglio.
“The said meeting led to the setting up of a subcommittee with the mandate of finding a lasting solution to incessant protests by the youth of the area and it was given ten working days to submit its report.
“The subcommittee therefore, had its inaugural sitting on 2nd September 2020 where every member was in attendance including the representatives of Oyigbo.
“While waiting for the report of the subcommittee, the youth in their numbers embarked on flagrant action and barricaded the TCN station without recourse to the action points of the sterling committee, thereby stopping PHED from evacuating power to the good people of Rivers State on daily basis at a period where the country is gradually recovering from the shock of the pandemic”.
PHED explained that the community was not disconnected by PHED as widely speculated by the youths, adding that the loss of power supply to the area was due to faults on the lines;
“We were going to fix the fault and discovered that it was huge which requires resources. But we are constrained to deploy such huge resources to a community that has never paid electricity bill for over seven years of PHED’s existence.
“At the present, we are struggling to pay salaries and other statutory obligations. Everyone knows that electricity is *NOT* free anywhere in the world”, he said.
PHED therefore, called for the intervention of the opinion leaders and security agencies to prevail on the youths to vacate the place to enable PHED distribute power to its esteemed customers and also appealed for their understanding while waiting for the final resolution.