Asaba residents protest two-year power outage

Firstclass newsline gathered that power consumers at Kwekagbor
community in Asaba Delta State on Friday protested that the Benin
Electricity Distribution Company had so far found no solution to the
outage that has lasted two years in the community.
The protesters said, "BEDC restore our electricity, we need
electricity. For two years, we have had no light in the area, we have
been paying our bills and we cannot continue in darkness, restore our
electricity or face our continued protest."
The protesters alleged that landlords/residents of the area had
contributed over N5m and given to the BEDC officials to restore power
supply to the area but in a swift reaction, the Public affairs manager
of the company, Mrs. Esther Okolie, dispelled their allegations as
untrue saying that no official of the company had been involved in any
shady deal.
She said that the community residents having met two out of the three
requirements of the company, would receive electricity in a week's
time.
It was further alleged that money contributed individually and
collectively by residents of the community to purchase transformers
was embezzled.
Leader of the protesters, Emmanuel Anyansi, said, "We have been
getting different excuses and we are tired of stories from BEDC. What
we want is our electricity to be restored and failure to do so will
make us continue our protest."
The protesters who had marched through various streets of Asaba to the
office of the BEDC along Anwai Road chanted solidarity war songs,
asking the BEDC to restore electricity to the area or face their
wrath.
Firstclassnewsline.net