By Princess Simon (Bureau Chief North Central, in Minna)
The Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) has appealed to customers to reciprocate improved electricity supply in the region by ensuring prompt payment of bills instead of resorting to cutting corners and launching attacks on it's field staff.
The AEDC Minna Regional Manager (RM), Engineer Mahmud Keni Ndaduma, made the plea in reaction to an attack on Mr. Oshamiluyi Olugbenga, the Chief Security Officer of the region, by the family members of a former Commissioner in Niger state.
Olugbenga while narrating the encounter, said the task force on cash collection and metre monitoring was on routine check and got to the former Commissioner’s house but he was not at home and it was discovered that the electricity metre was illegal.
On demand to know how the ‘illegal’ metre was acquired, Olugbenga said the Commissioners’ son who was at home did not provide convincing answers and this prompted the task force to disconnect the house which did not go down well with the son who came out with a knife which he used to threaten the AEDC staffs.
Though the former commissioners’ son was later overpowered and the knife seized from him, Olugbenga said the task force returned to their AEDC office but was followed by the former Commissioner who instead of calling his son to order rained more abusive words on the team and threatened to deal with them should they ever disconnect his house.
Continued threats by the former Commissioner and his family for daring to cut power supply to his house, according to Olugbenga, prompted the task force team to invite the police who in turn invited the former Commissioner and his son for questioning.
Meanwhile, the RM, Engineer Mahmud Keni Ndaduma, has condemned, in strong terms, the attack on his task force by the family members of a former Commissioner who had tried to evade verifications of his house for allegedly installing illegal meter.
Whereas electricity supply has improved in the past couple of months, the RM said he expects customers, including the state government parastatals, traditional rulers and owners of places of worship to reciprocate, but what he gets is reports of attacks on his staff.
“We have tried to improve power supply in the region. We pay for this and we expect our customers to reciprocate this by paying for bills promptly instead of resorting to cutting corners to cover actual consumption rate”, he said, but warned that this will not be condoned.
The task force had gone to the former Commissioner's house where they discovered that he has many ACs, pumping machines and other electrical appliances with high consumption capacity, yet he is paying peanuts to us at the end of the month and they wanted to know why? Why would they be attacked", the RM queried
The RM who however said he is not holding 100 percent trust on his field staff as the company also has internal mechanism for dealing with ailing staff, is therefore appealing to customers to desist from patronising saboteurs who would help them do ‘bypass’ that would only land them in trouble.
While assuring of continued improvement in power supply, Engineer Ndaduma reminded customers that, “Electricity supply is business, the AEDC has paid for the energy, please pay for the energy consumed so that we can buy more and as well pay our staff”.
Lamenting the attitude of customers who want to enjoy light but are not willing to pay, the RM said, “Pay us to serve you better, we don’t intend to disconnect anybody, pay your bills in order to serve you better. Disconnection is our last option, and please don’t provoke us to disconnect you”. NNL.
