A dispute over alleged transformer stripping is escalating between Ikeja Electric’s technical personnel and residents of Oladejo, Anisere, and Odunukan in the Olusosun neighborhood of Ikeja, Lagos State.
When Ikeja Electric stated on Monday that it will be performing a week-long technical upgrade on its Opebi Injection Substation between October 17 and 21, 2022, one of the residents, Kazeem Dare, said nothing was amiss with the transformer as of that day.
He said this was from a portion of the message distributed to residents: “Ikeja Electric wishes to notify its esteemed customers that between October 17 and October 21, 2022, we will be conducting a weeklong technical upgrade on our Opebi Injection Substation in an effort to enhance our customer experience.
The areas of Olusosun, Agbaoku, Salvation, Awuse Estate, and Opebi won’t have power at this time. We sincerely apologize for any inconveniences, and we appreciate your understanding.
To their surprise, he claimed, three technical personnel from the Disco showed up to their neighborhood on Tuesday and claimed they needed to fix the transformer.
“We questioned them based on our prior interactions with them, when they came for similar repairs and took our transformer away for months.
“We assured them that there was nothing wrong with the transformer and that it had operated normally up until Opebi injection substation’s general closure on Monday. When did the transformer start to malfunction?
The disco employees did what they pleased and left, but, according to Dare, “there was no light on our streets when power was restored by Friday after the Opebi injection substation improvement.”
He claimed that when they called the disco office, the only solution was for them to come and take the transformer to their yard for repairs.
“We want Ikeja Electric’s management to ask the technical team the following questions: When did the transformer develop a fault?” Since there was no documented defect prior to Monday when the Opebi injection substation was shut down for an update, please explain the nature of the fault and why they need to remove it.
Monday Ukeje, a different resident, claimed that the technical staff of the disco once took their transformer away for months and that a similar incident is set to occur today because they claim that if they take the transformer away, they are unsure of when they will bring it back.
What kind of anguish do they intend to cause us? We are aware of the struggles we faced recently when the Opebi Injection Substation was shut down, which prevented us from purchasing gasoline for our generators.
Economically, things are already terrible; they shouldn’t make matters worse. These folks ought to be brought to order by the Ikeja Electric management team, chaired by Folake Soetan.
