Landlords at Parliament Estate Residents Association in Akure, Ondo State on Friday protested against the refusal of the Benin Electricity Distribution Company to power the transformer procured by the community.
The protesters, who carried placards and moved round the town, said they contributed money to buy the transformer in 2019 and all efforts to get the BEDC to energise it had failed.
Speaking during the protest, the chairman of estate, Titus Falana, said the community had issued a two-week ultimatum to the electricity company to energise the transformer in the community or face a massive protest at the headquarters in Benin, Edo State.
Falana stated that the BEDC forced them to submit original receipt of the purchase of the transformer and made them to write a letter of willingness to donate the transformer to the power firm as conditions to connect the transformer to the grid but nothing had been done.
He said, “We bought poles, cables and all necessary things. We have made every arrangement but they are saying some people here owe the company. We don’t have the power to collect debts for the BEDC. They should migrate the debtors to metering arrangement so that they can pay little by little. We will carry out a bigger protest to Benin, the BEDC headquarters.