OpeOluwani Akintayo
Lagos — The one-month stay-home-stay-safe order by the federal government resulted in torrents of phones calls from Nigerians to electricity distribution companies, DisCos over power supply interruptions, SweetcrudeReports findings has shown.
Statistics obtained from the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, showed that during the lockdown to curb spread of the COVID-19 virus, the higher urge to stay abreast of current happenings around the world had necessitated the inability to stand power interruptions by Nigerians.
This, according to the data for April 24-30, led to a spike in phone calls, emails and Whatsaap messages to the eleven DisCos across the country.
On April 24, all the DisCos got total daily complaints phone calls of 108, April 25, 56, April 26, 42, April 27, 105, April 28, 82, April 29, 77 and April 30, 78.
On the other hand, email complaints for April 24 were put at 33, April 25 at 29, April 26 at 28, April 27, 21, April 28, 49, April 29, 53 and 30th of April at 33.
As for WhatsApp, the DisCos recorded daily complaint messages of 30 on April 24, 38 0n April 25, 51 on April 26, 72 on April 27, 77 on April 28, 47 on April 29 and 52 on April 30, making a total of 1, 161 complaints during the period under review.
However, out of the over 1000 complaints during the period, just 486 were resolved, according to statistics from NERC.
Being the capital of Nigeria, Abuja Electricity Distribution Company, AEDC received the highest general complaints and on interruption of power supply.
The firm got 276 complaints during the period and 242 on interruption but was able to resolve 198 of them all.
Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company, IKEDC followed with 189 total complaints and 86 on interruption. It was able to resolve just 51.
Next was Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company, IBEDC with total complaints of 178, and 170 on interruption- resolved 80.
Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company, PHEDC took fourth on the list, with total of 123 received complaints and 104 on interruption- resolved just 45.
Enugu Electricity Distribution Company, EEDC took the fifth position with 103 total complaints and 75 on interruption- resolved 46.
Others such as Benin Electricity Distribution Company, BEDC got 48 complaints and 39 on interruptions- resolved 13. Eko Electricity Distribution Company, EKEDC received 79 total complaints and 72 on interruption- attended to 41.
Jos Electricity Distribution Company, JEDC got a total of 55 complaints, 40 on interruption, and resolved 31 of them all. Kaduna Electricity Distribution Company, KDEDC had a total of 37 complaints and 31 interruption complaints from customers but was able to resolve just four, thus, putting the DisCo on the least performing utility firm during the period.
For Kano Electricity Distribution Company, KNEDC- firm received 50 total complaints, 41 on interruption- attended to 25 of them all.
Government-owned Yola Electricity Distribution Company, YEDC received a total of 67 customer complaints during the period, 52 on interruption but resolved just 26.
This brings complaints received to a total of 1205, 952 on interruption and 560 resolved within the period.
The NERC explained that some of the DisCos reported having some infrastructural and technical constraints on some of their feeders which the Commission said it intervened to ensure speedy resolution during the period.
SweetcrudeReports had earlier reported how statistics for April 4-17 showed that a total of 3, 225 complaints were received by the DisCos with 2, 689 bordered on interruption- 1,433 of these complaints were resolved.
