Residents of the Ode-Ekiti community in Gboyin local government area of Ekiti State have been rejoicing following restoration of power supply to the area last Friday by the BEDC Electricity Plc after a two-year outage.
The restoration was the outcome of series of meetings between the BEDC management and the community, which started with the installation of bulk pre-payment meters to all the sub-stations in the community, before the energisation of the transformers.
A resident of the community, Mr Biodun Akomolafe, welcoming the restoration as “a good development”, described the long outage as “a lifeless period” for residents. “All the artisans fled the community,” he remarked.
The BEDC commenced enumeration of Ode-Ekiti about three months ago and is currently working on the other communities in the local government.
The BEDC, in fulfilment of its pledge to the Ekiti State government last year, had restored electricity supply to the Erijiyan, Ipole-Iloro and Ikogosi communities last December.
The companies had, during a meeting last year with the Ekiti State governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi, assured that power would be restored to the tourism corridor of the state by the middle of December 2018.
Communities in the tourism hub, which was then out of power supply, included Ikogosi-Ekiti (host of the Ikogosi Warm Spring Resort), Ipole-Iloro, base of Ariata Waterfalls and Erijiyan Ekiti.
The BEDC Managing Director/Chief Executive Oficer, Mrs Funke Osibodu, had at a press briefing disclosed there was ongoing rehabilitation of the Ikogosi/Erijiyan/Ipole Iloro and Aramoko 33kv feeder, adding that communities in these areas should have more stable power soon.
The BEDC said it was partnering with the Ekiti State government (EKSG) on an arrangement for a more improved power supply to enable it power its street lights, among other efforts at restoring power to communities affected by the outage.
It stated that recent power improvement projects in Ekiti State included installation and commissioning of three 11kv indoor panels at the Agric 15mva injection sub-station to replace the obsolete ones, commissioning of the new CBN Ado-Ekiti 2.5mva 33/11kv injection sub-station, and commissioning of two 1.5mva 11/0.415kv distribution sub-stations within the CBN complex to increase power supply and quality of supply from six hours to 12 hours.
It was understood that major challenges affecting electricity operations in the state included transmission bottlenecks, limitations in rearranging distribution network to improve power supply and increase in network and equipment vandalisation.
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