…As victims hail Daily Sun over report
By Job Osazuwa
Officials of Eko Electricity Distribution Company (EKEDC), Ajangbadi, Lagos, have apologised to the residents of 54, Rasheed Babatunde Street over illegal disconnection of power in the house.
The company has also restored power to the residents, who were hitherto accused of tampering with their metres.
This came after Daily Sun, on Thursday, August 11, published a story on the residents’ ordeal after they were illegally deprived of electric power since April, 2015 and left in the darkness for months.
The occupants have expressed gratitude to The Sun Publishing Limited for making their plight known to the public and EKEDC’s top officials. In the publication, occupants of the house had reported the matter to the Okoko Police Station and also threatened to sue EKEDC for allegedly extorting money from them.
It was gathered that after the report, the Business Manager of Ojo District, Mr. Gabriel Eze’s attention was drawn to the issue and he immediately waded into it. The residents, who were angered by the company’s action, were said to have let the sleeping dogs lie.
One of the affected residents, Mr. Daniel Chukwudi, said Mr. Eze was not aware of the matter, but after the publication, he summoned both parties for a meeting in order to investigate the crisis and urgently resolve it amicably.
“After your publication, we were invited to a meeting at EKEDC’s office, Iba new site. The meeting was attended by Mr. Eze, EKEDC’s Public Relation Officer, Mrs. Ozo Nwozo, and other officials, as well as residents of the disconnected house.
“Eze said nobody reported the case to him. But we told him that we complained to the former business manager. He assured us that he would not support any form of exploitation of customers and that he was there to ensure customers’ satisfaction.”
According to Chukwudi, Eze said the last man that disconnected the electricity misunderstood how different metres in the house were connected and how they worked, adding that the monitoring team was from the supervisory unit.
Chukwudi said: “After his investigation, he discovered that the man that disconnected it was not aware that the issue had been treated by Mr. Olaniyan when he was the marketing manager at Ajangbadi. Mr. Eze immediately ordered his workers to reconnect the power.”
Another occupant of the house, Pastor Chukwudi Okoh, told the reporter that as a man of God, he believed in resolving any dispute peacefully, especially when the truth has been established. He said the residents decided to embrace peace, owing to the mature way Mr. Eze and Mr. Olaniyan handled the matter.
“When we were invited to a meeting after Daily Sun published the story, I was expecting to meet the same man that handled the matter in 2015, but I noticed that the man had been moved to another zone,” he said.
The man of God said Eze frowned on the situation, and asked the residents to always come to the EKEDC at Iba to lodge complaints when they are unsatisfied with the company’s service. “I told them that as a pastor, I have to live by example. If I refuse to embrace peace as a servant of God, what then will I teach my congregation? I told my co-tenants to forget the matter because of the way Eze particularly handled the matter. We thank your organisation for helping us to bring the matter to the people’s domain,” Okoh said.
He said he would have still remained in darkness over an offence he did not commit, noting that the publication by Daily Sun was very thorough, objective and professional.