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Five years after, Eko Disco rejects connecting government-donated transformer

By Gbenga Salau
02 November 2018   |   4:07 am
Five years after Lagos State government donated a transformer to residents of Muwo in Ojo Local Government Area, the transformer has not been connected to power supply.

Five years after Lagos State government donated a transformer to residents of Muwo in Ojo Local Government Area, the transformer has not been connected to power supply. The journey to the donation started in June 2013, when a member of the Muwo Community Development Association executive, Mr. Lasaki Abiodun, sent a mail to the immediate past governor, Babatunde Fashola, pleading that the governor should save the community from constant darkness.

Luckily, the same month, the governor responded through the then Commissioner for Rural Development, Cornelius Ojelabi and a week after, the community was excited when it saw a representative of the state government in their community based on the complaint raised. The Chairman, Muwo CDA, Sunday Oyesina, said after the ministry of Rural Development visited the community to take inventory and verify the claims, the state gave the community skeleton transformer and mandated the community to get the other items needed to install it and make it ready for connection.

The CDA chair disclosed that with the transformer in the community’s kitty, members contributed to get the necessary items to connect the transformer to the power grid. He said since 2013, all entreaties made to Eko Electricity Distribution to connect the transformer had not been successful with the representatives of the disco giving excuses why the transformer could not be connected to the national grid.

After attempts to get the different layers of authorities within the disco firm attend to its request, the community was left with engaging the Managing Director of Eko Disco through an open letter dated June 1, 2018, which reads: “We hereby request your office to assist us in connecting a spare 500KVA transformer donated to us by the Lagos State government some years back. The transformer is lying idle in our community with all the accessories available, which were provided by the community and installed by our local contractor. The present transformer Muwo (1) 500KVA which the entire community feeds from has been overloaded and this result to constants tripping of power supply.”

Oyesina said the managing director responded by sending an engineer to verify their claim but the community was alarmed when two days later, Eko disco said it has looked into its revenue from the community, which showed only 63 per cent is generated from the bill sent monthly. He added that the disco official said the revenue percentage being generated falls short of Eko disco expected revenue from the community and that they should raise their bill payment to 85 per cent to get the transformer connected.

The Public Relations Officer, Eko Disco, Godwin Idemudia, reacting in a message to The Guardian said he needs proof of all the claims for any action to be taken. “Let them send the proof through you to me. That is the way you will be able to confirm their claims,” he said.

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