KEY POINTS
- Ikorodu residents protested at Ikeja Electric’s headquarters over more than seven years of unstable electricity.
- Community members say outages have damaged businesses, education, and daily living conditions.
- Residents also appealed for road rehabilitation and broader government intervention.
Residents of Erunwen community in Ikorodu staged a protest at the headquarters of Ikeja Electric Distribution Company in Ikeja, demanding urgent action to address what they described as more than seven years of erratic power supply.
The protesters, representing 18 Community Development Associations and a population exceeding 400,000 people, gathered at the company’s gate to call for the immediate installation of a functional transformer to restore stable electricity to their area.
Speaking to journalists, community spokesman Ayodele Adeyinka said residents had sent multiple complaints to customer service units and local offices without receiving meaningful responses. He added that community representatives met with a technical officer from the company last year who promised intervention, but two months later no visible progress had been made.
Adeyinka said the prolonged blackout has disrupted daily life, weakened security, and damaged local businesses. Many households now rely on generators and solar power, while students sometimes attend school in unironed uniforms because of lack of electricity, which he said affects their confidence and participation in activities.
Unstable electricity affects small businesses
A trader, Mrs. Fausatu Idowu, explained that unstable electricity has hurt her small business and her sister’s frozen fish trade. She said a recent outage forced them to discard spoiled goods, leading them to invest in alternative power sources to stay afloat. She also complained that residents still receive electricity bills despite supply that sometimes lasts only about an hour per day.
Community leaders said repeated engagements with company officials have not produced results and urged management to intervene urgently, stressing that patience among residents is running out. Attempts to obtain an official response from the company were unsuccessful at the time of reporting.
Chairman of the Joint Erunwen Community Development Forum, Olaniyi Maxwell Olowosoki, also drew attention to poor road conditions in the area, noting that flooding renders some inner roads unusable during rainy seasons. He said residents have pooled resources to grade roads but cannot afford asphalt surfacing.
He commended Babajimi Benson, the House of Representatives member representing Ikorodu, and appealed to him to fulfil his promise to rehabilitate roads in the community.
