L2G With Ada Africa: ARE YOU AWARE OF THIS MR. GOVERNOR, SOLUDO

It has been over 16 years I ‘stayed’ away from my village and hometown, Igboukwu in Aguata LGA, a neighboring town with my governor. I neither participate in any activity nor travel home with family for Christmas. For personal reasons, I chose to cut off myself from travelling or sleeping in my lovely village. In a deeper search for a quiet place to brainstorm and efficiently carry out my online consultancy work, and also to utilize the constant power supply to my community, I relocated to my village last month, October 2022.

ELECTRICITY SUPPLY AND BILLING My community is enjoying constant electricity and most homes are using the analogue billing system. Storey buildings pay between N4,500 – N6,500 per month while cottages/bungalows pay between N2,500 – N3,500. The image is my family house and there is no single soul living in the house and the electricity is turned off. However, every month, we pay N4,500 to the EEDC, amounting to N50,000+ annually for electricity we never consumed. Likewise other homes. Is this fair?

BLACK OUT ON WEEKENDS I was quite enjoying the electricity and invited a welder from Awka to do some work in the house. He mentioned bringing his generator along. I told him that electricity is wasting in my village, he should just come. The welder arrived on Thursday evening and started work. At past 6pm, the light went off. I told him to relax and that the light would soon be back. That the power supply here is not like the one in Nigeria, I boasted. 7, 8, 9, 10 PM, the light didn’t come on. Ah! I started panicking but forced myself to sleep and dreamt many times the light came on but waking up, no light anywhere. The next morning, I apologized to the welder, saying that this has never happened since I came to the village. He went back to Awka to get his own generator. Shocking, the entire Friday and Saturday, no blink of light. This led me to ask neighbors questions. They laughed at me that I shouldn’t expect light till Sunday when the funeral is over. So here is the gist, if you have a burial or function during the weekend and didn’t get to settle the EEDC, no electricity for you to host your event. Painful! So because of one family, you denied the entire community electricity for 3 days. Wickedness! The power supply resumed on Sunday evening after the family must have finished everything about the funeral. Another hinted to me that I won’t be enjoying constant power supply during the Christmas period.

WHY ARE THE LEADERS QUIET? The next weekend came, the same happened. The light went off on Thursday evening and back on Sunday afternoon. This is quite discouraging from staying in the village. Are the Igboukwu Development Union leaders and the stakeholders not aware of this? Are they also comfortable with the billing method especially, the locked up houses that no one uses the electricity? A monthly service charge is reasonable and not paying for what one didn’t consume. Charley Nwa Mgbafor, I am also bringing this to your attention. This is happening right in your LGA. Instruct the EEDC to desist from taking off the electricity on weekends because the family didn’t settle them. If this continues, I would rather disconnect entirely from the EEDC. Spending only 1week+ during the Christmas period, will one consume more than 50k+ of fuel? CONCLUSION I believe the SOLUTION to the above ill IS HERE. I believe in the administration and I am always patient with the government. Udegboka Tessie Nkechi (Ada Africa) local2global4@gmail.com +2348033842029