As we all know that one of the major issues in Nigeria is electricity, most part of the country have been experiencing epileptic power discharge for decades. Unlike other countries in the world where they have 24 hours uninterrupted power supply, Nigeria is one of the African countries who lack stable electricity. In a report some years back, Ghana one of the west African nations celebrated one year of uninterrupted power supply which Nigeria has never matched since independence. Many investors reportedly relocated their industries and companies to Ghana due to the intense outage here in our country.
It’s undisputable that electricity remains the major key to a vibrant economy, the numbers of investment is reducing yearly couple with unfavourable policies of the government. Dunlop Elite, manufacturing company who specializes on the production of automotive tyres was also reported to have relocated from Nigeria to Ghana due to power instability. Michelin, also known in the same industry with Dunlop evacuate their production site from the country to another part of the world where they enjoy stable power due to communal policies which were not in their favour.
Early hours of today, the residents of choba community in Rivers state of Nigeria have expressed their grievances over poor discharge of light in the community in the past three weeks. Olainfo gathered this information when its media team embark on a street interview due to the outage in the community. Some of the residents whose name is Chika Akani confirmed that light has been unavailable in the community for more than three weeks, he claimed that the power holding officials seized the light after they randomly collected electricity bills from the residents which is really affecting their businesses and commercial activities in the community.
One of the respondents who goes by the name Blessing Nwor an indigene of Choba claimed that the major effects of this outage on water supply in his compound. The young landlord reveals that he doesn’t have generator to power his water supply and only depend on the government light. He added that this has been the habit of the power officials towards Choba for years, he claimed that this always happen after they must collected electricity bills from the occupant of the community, the light will be seized for weeks and subsequently restore it when they need to rake another bill.
However, speaking with one the power holding officials, Mr Ogbonna Franklin, who is the head of the Choba division, has debunked the claims of the residents that they intentionally took away the light. He revealed in a further interrogation that one of the poles holding the electricity cables connecting Choba and a neighbouring community fell down after a heavy rainfall over the weeks. He added that this incident has caused a lot of disconnections within the cables connecting the two communities, and they decided to disconnect the light totally to avoid unforeseen situations according to Mr Ogbonna.
One of the residents of the community who wish to remain anonymous revealed to Olainfo that the chiefs who preside over the management of anything pertaining to Choba are behind the outage. He maintained that a food manufacturing company popularly known as indomie which has its plant in the community has already settled the electricity bills of the entire Choba community. He said that the bills are paid through the chiefs to deliver to the power holding company which they rather pocket for their selfish interest.
However, speaking with one the chiefs in our further interview, he claimed that choba people are compliant of law as they don’t regularly pay bills contrary to the claim that the bills were already settles by the company. The collective residents however appealed to the government of the state to look into the matter as they anticipate a favourable response soon.
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