I am happy that Barrister Babatunde Fasola, the Minister in charge of Power, last week Monday called on the Electricity Distribution Companies (Discos), to step up their service delivery or quit. I am particularly delighted that he spoke on the metering and billing system of the firms among others. But since he did not address the issue of pre – paid meter, I decided to write this piece to appeal to the National Assembly to act on the matter. And I am encouraged to do so because the Senate in November, last year ordered the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to suspend its planned increase in telecommunication data tariff until it looked into and resolved the matter.

It is now more than five, if not close to ten years, that the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) introduced pre – paid meter and about two or more years that the Discos took over from it. And I believe this is long a time for them to have made pre – paid meters available to all their customers. But as at today over sixty per cent of their clients are yet to be supplied with the meters because of their deliberate efforts to continue to cheat and fleece helpless Nigerians.

The proof of this is that the Discos serve customers very high bills every month in areas with no electricity for one, two, three or six months. I recall there were protest marches in November, last year by the people of Ketu and Ikosi areas of mainland Lagos and in Sapele, Delta State over exorbitant and provocative charges for three or more months when they had no electricity supply. Indeed,  how can meters function to produce figures for consumption service when there was no electricity in their areas? Surely, the meters of those who have the pre – paid ones in the three communities would not have recorded any consumption throughout the period. Presenting people with bills when there is no electricity in their area shows that the charges by the Discos to those who have no pre – paid meters are done arbitrarily and not based on what the consumers truly used.

Some of the protesters who live in a bedroom and parlour or a boys quarter flat of one or two bedrooms and a living room, who use only bulbs, a pressing iron, one fridge and two fans and who have no air conditioner and who do not use electricity to cook, said they pay anything from six to eight thousand naira a month. Whereas a friend of mine with pre-paid meter who lives in a four – bedroom and a living room apartment and uses ten air conditioners and four refrigerators says he pays about five to six thousand naira every month for electricity consumption.

The solution to the problem is for the National Assembly or the Federal Government to get the Discos, if they don’t have sufficient money, to take bank loans to buy pre – paid meters. Since they have ready – made market in the prospective consumers of the pre – paid meters they can’t lose their money. Rather they would make profits and be able to settle their loan facilities. If any of them can not cope then the Discos purchased by them should be taken and sold to the companies that can run them and which if necessary would pay any balance due to them.


R.I.P. IGP Inyang

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It is a pity that the series I was writing made it impossible for me to pay tribute to former Inspector – General of Police, Chief Etim Okon Inyang when he died or was laid to rest. But he is benefactor I owe the debt of writing to about. This is because when he was the head of the Nigerian Police Service he saved me from being arrested, charged before a military tribunal under Decree 4 of 1984 and jailed. One day that year Chief Inyang sent a police officer to my office to say I should see him. It was to warn me not to attend media briefings in Dodan Barracks or the State House at Marina addressed by General Tunde Idiagbon, the Chief of General Staff, Supreme Military Headquarters and Deputy Head of State. He also warned me to mind what I published in the Sunday Concord which I was then editing.

I was probably one of the press men who made their government headed by General Muhammadu Buhari (December 31, 1983 – August 27, 1985) to come up with Decree 4 that any journalist who writes any article that libels or embarrasses a public office holder, military or civilian will be arrested and tried under that obnoxious and vindictive law.

To Idiagbon, I was an editor and columnist Chief Moshood Abiola, the publisher of Concord Press of Nigeria was using to embarrass their administration. One of the articles was a column I wrote that their government cannot succeed fighting at the same time traditional rulers, medical practitioners, lawyers, the Nigerian Labour Congress, university students and the press, particularly the last four groups.  The other publication he found offensive, and the major one, was the front – page news story we carried on his order that all condemned prisoners in the jail houses throughout the country should be executed within seven days. Some of them had been on the death row since the 1960s, 70s or 80s.

I used the story because the reporter who brought it came with a photocopy of the order Idiagbon gave and the script was written in such a way that anyone would know that we saw the document. The General was embarrassed by the publication because it showed him as a ruthless and conscienceless leader who instead of releasing some of the condemned prisoners or making others to have life sentence was ordering people up to two hundred or more to be executed across the country within a week.

It was because his friends and others were reaching out to him over the matter that he gave the order to Chief Inyang to get me arrested. But the man told me he found the Sunday Concord I was editing as a professional and responsibly run paper and my column one of high integrity. He said it was because of this he refused to arrest me, telling Idiagbon that I was in Britain on a course and was using the Concord office in London in sending my column down and that my name was only used in the imprint because I was the editor. This was why he told me not to go to press briefings addressed by General Idiagbon and to watch what I was publishing.

To be continued next week with the conclusion and story of Chief Rasheed Gbadamosi