Residents of several areas in Rivers State have lamented how the Power Holding Company of Nigeria PHED, made their Christmas holiday a dreary one as the electricity distribution company deliberately ensured that they didn’t have power supply to support their holiday plans.
The situation was made even worse by the fact that many were caught unawares as they didn‘t make contingent plans against such prolonged power outages or staying several days with only very few hours of power.
This according to one of the sources was because prior to the Christmas holiday period there was marked improvement on power supply making them confident that there could only be further improvement during the yuletide.
“But alas”, lamented Mrs Kimberly Onyedikachi, a resident of Rumuesara area of Eneka in Obio/Akpor local government area, “on December 24th while we were busy arranging for the celebrations of the following day there was power outage. And since that day till today (30th of December) we are talking, power supply suddenly became very epileptic to the extent that we passed through so many hours without a single second of power supply”.
This type of long stretch of absence of power she explained hadn’t happened for a very long time before this Christmas holiday so making many families to suffer huge loses on damaged perishable foodstuffs as many took it for granted that with improved power supply there wad no need to spend much needed funds on maintenance of generators.
A frustrated father, Mr Macleans Douglas who resides at Abakaliki Street in Mile 1, Dioubu, in Port Harcourt City Local Government Area lamented how he called the bluff of his generator technician with the hope to make due with public power supply only for PHED, in a move, akin to conspiracy with the generator technician to suddenly return to its epileptic power supply to the area.
Mr Douglas said; “all through the end of November to the first two weeks of December, we witnessed improved power supply which made us spend less on generators and fuel. So when I called my generator mechanic to come service my generator and he was reluctant, I decided to call his bluff thinking that PHED would continue with the improvement on power supply only for them to disappoint me”.
“What we experienced in the whole of this area was a dark Christmas holiday, to say the least”. From December 23rd power supply dropped so drastically that we now hardly have up to two hours of power supply in a 24-hour period. And this coming during the Christmas holiday is wickedness on the part of PHED. The most annoying thing is that no one offered any warning or has bothered to offer an explanation as to what went wrong”.
Mr. Ben Egbadon who resides at Mgboba NTA Road area, also in Obio/Akor Local Government area also confirmed the poor power supply to the area during the holiday. He hinted of heavy dependence on his generators to ensure his holiday was not ruined by PHED. He told our correspondent via the telephone that some parts of residents in the area who get their supply from the federal power supply line had a better deal compared with those of the state line. “Those ones have not had power supply for upwards of four days during this holiday”, Mr. Egbadon informed.
For Mr Julian Ihunwo, a journalist residing in town Town area of Port Harcourt City, PHED seemed more determined to put many homes in darkness than provide them power supply to enjoy the yuletide.
“Why do you say so? And he explained.
“PHED deliberately chose this period to embark of mass disconnection of their customers. Isn’t that wickedness? He queried.
He went on; “the most annoying thing is that in some situations they even disconnected customers who had demonstrated good faith in trying to pay part of their bills, demanding they pay hundred percent of the bills most of which were determined by estimation.
He spoke of one disconnection team led by one Tunde, who went about disconnecting customers over unpaid over-bloated balances arising from estimated billing. “These were so heartless in their attitude that they would not accept any entreaty from customers for a negotiation. They were rather reporting that they risked losing their jobs if they did not continue with the “mass disconnections” even when they had not fully complied with directive of the Nigerian Electricity Regulation Commission NERC”.
In fact the said Tunde told us in one instance that the only thing that would guarantee his job was that he would disconnect the “erring customer” and send a video recording of the disconnection exercise to his management, also located at Moscow Road. So it was a clear indication that PHED was out to ensure that as many of its customers as possible in Rivers State were put in darkness during the Christmas holiday”.
Further investigation, however, showed that there were few areas where residents continued to enjoy a relative stable power supply during the holiday. It was also however discovered that such areas like Rukpakurusi, in Obio/Akpor has been adequately covered by pre-paid meter.
So he was surprised when residents from the other unfortunate sections of the state were lamenting about the sudden drop in power supply especially close to the Christmas holiday.
It was even alleged at some local circles that there is a collution between some PHED officials and petrol station outlets in some of the affected areas of the state to cut power supply so as to make the petrol stations make brisk business from selling to generator customers.
When contacted for an explanation of what could have caused the sudden short supply of power in Rivers State, an official of the power distribution company at its headquarters in Port Harcourt, Mr John, who acts as the spokesman of PHED after hearing the enquiry from our correspondent promised to call back on whatsapp immediately.
That promised he failed to keep several hours after nor did he respond to the text messages to his telephone line until the time of filing in this story.
YOU SHOULD NOT MISS THESE HEADLINES FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE
Buhari Urges MTN For Quality Service, Downward Price Review In Cost Of Data, Other Services
President Muhammadu Buhari Friday at State House Abuja urged the MTN Group to make the available top-of-the-range service to its Nigerian subscribers… PHED customers lament over spending Christmas holiday in “darkness” PHED customers lament over spending Christmas holiday in “darkness” PHED customers lament over spending Christmas holiday in “darkness” PHED customers lament over spending Christmas holiday in “darkness”