Ibadan Residents Groan Under PHCN Extortionists

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The residents of Ibadan, capital of Oyo State, southwest Nigeria, have called on the management of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) to prevail on its staff to stop exporting money from them before rendering service.

Some of the residents who preferred anonymity complained that in some cases, staff of the corporation ask consumers of electricity to pay between N1. 5million and N600,000 depending on the services required of them.

The residents alleged that at the slightest opportunity, staff of PHCN extort money from consumers, stressing that they are too corrupt.

They stated that apart from the residents buying electric polls, cables and transformers and pay exorbitantly for transformer installation, PHCN staff would come around and tamper with transformers and claim that the transformers had developed fault and bill the residents for the repairs.

Any area the residents do not cooperate with them by paying for their services, the PHCN staff punish them by giving them crazy bills.

At Harmony Estate, Elewuro, Akobo area of Ibadan, each house is to pay N160,000 for both installation and purchase of transformers.

Also, at Unity Estate in the same Elewuro area, N35,000 has been imposed on each house to buy transformer after which they will contribute money for installation.

In addition, some of the residents of Oke Alaafia who have been experiencing power outage for the past two months, said they were asked to pay N600,000 with each house coughing out N14,000.

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Reacting to the allegations of extortion, the Principal Manager, Public Relations, Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company, Mr. Jide Oyenuga said there was no complaint from any resident within Ibadan over the alleged extortion.

He said, “I am just hearing about that now. I don’t know anything like that and nobody came here to lodge any complaint.”

He further referred newsmen to the Business Manager at Apata whose phone was unreachable after several attempts.

The residents of the affected areas said they were being made to pay for services not rendered, adding that the corruption in the PHCN was much more than any other sector in the country.

In some cases, residents in some areas would thrown into in darkness until they were forced to cough out the money.

Though, the management of PHCN in the soutwest warned some months ago that none of its staff should demand money for the services rendered, many of them would deliberately delay the installation until the money charged was paid.

In February this year, the Chief Executive Officer, Ibadan Electricity Board, Mr. Bolaji Oyesiku warned that any staff caught extorting money from electricity consumers would be treated as armed robbers.

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