There have been growing epileptic power situation, and unavailable power supply in the country, thereby making many communities to seek self-assistance.
The power situation in Plateau State is no different from this and many have even likened the state to be among the worst in the nation.
Some communities in Jos, the Plateau State capital, have recounted their ordeal to our correspondent, saying that they have been the ones making efforts to see to the purchase/repairs of their transformers.
Locals in Agingi community in Jos said there have been shedding power because of their transformer’s capacity.
According to them, this continues until officials of the electricity distribution company told them that the transformer was small in capacity and that they should raise N250,000 so that they can remove that particular one and bring them a fairly used one from Bauchi.
Sadly, they said, since they went round all the households to collect the money and give to the electricity distribution company, they have neither seen their old transformer nor the promised one.
The locals said they have since remained in total darkness.
The Village Head Akak Achahu said they have to task each house N2,000 to raise the money and that they have the records of the monies collected and paid.
“When we were using our old transformer, the light it provides was very low and one could hardly even see with it. Worse still, we were low shedding it among ourselves whereby some areas will have light for two days and then other area for another two days interchangeably.
“Again, the company kept bringing unimaginable bill and the people, especially those doing businesses which uses light kept paying heavily,” he said.
Another community with same sad tale is Angwan Rogo in Jos North. Some of the residents, who spoke to our correspondents regarding a transformer located on Danbadawe Street in the area, said they have never enjoyed light for about 15 years now, owing to either repeated low shedding or malfunctioning transformers. Besides, our correspondent observed that the transformer is just in front of someone’s house and the owner has lamented several times about its hazard.
Salisu Ahmed, who spoke to our correspondent, said they have stayed for about a year now without light after their former faulty transformer was taken away by the electricity company.
He said the one they brought to replace it only worked for about 20 days and got spoilt, adding that the electricity distribution company has been contacted several times but nothing has been done.
A 120 years old man in Danbadawe street, Alhaji Dogara Ishiaka, said for many years in recent time, he has not enjoyed light.
In Kufang area of Jos, by INEC office, the people said for few years now they were yet to have steady light, owing to faulty or low capacity transformer(s) usually installed for them.
A lady, who gave her name as Martha, explained that for over seven months now they have no light due to faulty transformer until sometimes in August this year when another transformer was installed for them.
However, she said, the newly installed transformer only worked for about two weeks and got spoilt again, and since then they have returned back to their ‘usual’ darkness.
She said some community mobilizers have been going from house to house to seek for N500 contribution to facilitate the purchase/supply of another transformer but people were not responding because they were already tired of contributing money to facilitate the bringing of a transformer that won’t work.
The Acting Head of Communications, Jos Electricity Distribution Company, Saratu Aliyu, said they do not encourage any community to pay money for transformers through any individual, and that they have been discouraging such.
She said, however, that if any community wants to facilitate the process of getting a transformer in their community, they should come to the office and discuss formally with those in charge, saying that there are some lay down procedures in doing such.
“For Unguwan Rogo, we have visited their community and their issue is being reviewed. Their transformer is under repair. While that of Agingi, we have replaced the faulty transformer and working on the other one. These transformers failures were as a result of too many illegal consumers who are not on our list of customers.
“This is principally why we encourage the public to give us details of these defaulters through our whistle blowing platforms. When we know the true number of consumers load on transformers it helps us identify the required level of technical infrastructure for such clusters of customers.
“For Kufang, their transformer have been faulty and is currently undergoing repairs and we are hoping to reinstall them as soon as the repairs are concluded,” she said.
