13 September 2014, Uyo — Residents of Offot Community in Abak Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom state have decried over six months power outage in the area.
Speaking with our correspondent, residents of the area said despite the fact that they procured a new transformer following the breakdown of the former transformer, staff of the Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company (PHEDC), have continued to frustrate the efforts to get back light.
The community further alleged that workers of the PHEDC in the area were demanding among other things, huge sum of money to restore the power supply as well as demanded to take the broken down transformer, a demand which members of the community resisted.
The demands were said have led to a face-off between the PHEDC staff and members of the community, a situation which has led to refusal to connect their line to the transformer. The development, it was learnt, has brought an untold hardship to residents as they depend on private generators to power their electrical equipment.
Business activities in the area have also been brought to its lowest ebb. The residents therefore pleaded with government and top officials of PHEDC in the state to intervene and save the people from the undeserved blackout.
Attempt to get words from the Abak district of PHEDC proved abortive as none of the staff was ready to react.
However, a staff who pleaded anonymity denied punishing residents of Offot for not giving them money to restore the electricity.
The staff who argued that PHEDC in the area had never demanded for money for the reconnection of the transformer, however failed to respond to why power was yet to be restored, despite several months since the new transformer was mounted.
*Idongesit Ashameri – Daily Independent