Resident of Selewu Community in Igbogbo/Baiyeku Local Council Development Area (LCDA) have accused officials of the Ikeja Electric Distribution Company (IKEDC) of vandalizing and stealing electricity cables from two transformers in their community. The allegation was coming on the heel of the alleged vandalization of the community, with cables connected to the transformers carted away by unknown persons. The incident occurred on Monday, November 11, 2019, but was discovered the following day by the residents.
According to report gathered, there was power supply till 11p.m on that Monday before there was an outage, and when the residents, who expected power to be restored the following morning, did not get light, they started getting suspicious that something was wrong. Their fears were, however, confirmed later that morning when it was allegedly discovered that the transformer at Soga-Debo junction, which serves different areas in Selewu Community, had been vandalized while cables and many items were allegedly stolen from it. The robbery operation resumed on Wednesday, November 13, 2019, when another transformer, located on Wura Ola 2 Street, was equally vandalised and cables stolen in what could be described as a pre-meditated theft.
Following the incident, the residents were said to have embarked on a protest to the IKEDC office in Igbogbo to register their complaint but the IKEDC officials were alleged to have demanded that each house in the affected areas should pay N13,000 before the transformers could be fixed. Though nobody was caught in connection with the incident, some of the residents, who spoke with our reporters under the conditions of anonymity, pointed accusing fingers at the officials of the IKEDC operating in the area.
One of the residents said that those responsible for the incident are either IKEDC officials or their partners in crime, stating that a novice without the required knowledge of the IKEDC operations would not embark on such risky act for fear of being electrocuted. She also described the thirteen thousand naira (N13,000) demanded from each house as a fraud on the part of the power officials, whom she said were about to be redeployed from the area and were only looking for customers to be exploited.
Another resident, while confirming the involvement of the IKEDC officials in the robbery incident, claimed to have seen the marketer of the area, simply identified as Samuel, driving a IKEDC official vehicle with ladder on it into the Community in the evening of the day the incident occurred while stating further that Samuel later left the community without the ladder and the official vehicle. He explained that the presence of Samuel in the Community on that day was suspicious since it was a public holiday when public officials like him are expected to be off duty. He also berated the IKEDC officials for demanding money from them to fix the transformers instead of discussing amicable ways by which the issue could be resolved since it was the community that contributed money to procure the transformers. They called on the government to assist them in resolving the issue so that they will not remain in darkness for long.
Meanwhile, the Baale of Selewu Community, Chief Olusola Adeleke Olubunmi, in an interview with our reporters, confirmed the vandalisation of the two transformers. He also alleged that IKEDC officials had visited him to make demand that each house in the community should pay money to fix the affected transformers but that he rejected the demand and warned them to look for amicable ways of assisting the community to fix the transformers to prevent residents from storming their office once again for protest.