Some residents of Apapa road and Ebute Metta, in Lagos State, on Wednesday protested 32 days power outage by the Eko Electricity Distribution Company (EKEDC), Lagos.

The residents staged a peaceful protest on major streets and submitted a protest letter to the EKEDC District Manager in the area.

The protesters carried placards with various inscriptions as they marched to the company’s district office in Ebute-Meta.

Mudasiru Taiwo, a resident, said that EKEDC was extorting residents of the area.

“When EKEDC brings electricity for three days, within those days, they will bring bills and make sure the residents pay for the bills, then the residents would be on blackout for 27 days.

“So, when they brought the last bills, we rejected them because we cannot continue to pay for what we did not consume.

“So, we are thinking they may still bring bills this month despite the outage, that is why we came out to protest, we do not want a repeat of last month’s situation,” Mr Taiwo said.

Funke Ilori, another resident, called on the company officials to remove their cables from the poles since they no longer supply power to them.

“In the last 32 days that we have been on outage, majority of us have resigned to destiny, so I will suggest that EKEDC should come and remove our wires from the poles,” Mrs Ilori said.

Julius Ajumobi, a frozen fish trader, said the outage affected all traders of frozen products, adding that most of them had relocated to other areas on Island where the electricity supply was constant.

However, speaking with journalists, Godwin Idemudia, the general manager, Corporate Communications Department, EKEDC, said the issue was being addressed.

Mr Idemudia said representatives of the affected communities and the company recently held a town hall meeting in Surulere.

“We have had a series of meetings with them. We are surprised at the protest, which does not favour either side.

“My advice is for both parties to continue to sit at a round table so we can resolve the lingering issues amicably. We value our customers,” Mr Idemudia said.

(NAN)