The Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC) said on Wednesday that steps are being taken to restore power to the Lalupon community in Ibadan, Oyo State, after a 10-year outage.
This follows a peaceful protest by residents of the community on Monday, over the decade-long power crisis.
IBEDC’s Technical Unit officer, Christopher Lawal, explained that they are currently providing power to 65% of customers on the feeder and using 40 transformers on load shedding. He said they are also exploring alternative feeding options.
Short-term measures include using new connections and isolators within three to four weeks, while a medium-term solution involves upgrading a feeder within eight to nine weeks.
“Other measures being put in place are the New Asejire to Lalupon quick wins and extensive use of isolators with the existing network arrangement within a timeline of three weeks as well as cascading of load between feeders within a timeline of four weeks,” Lawal said.
Lawal said IBEDC has been in talks with community leaders and is committed to resolving the issue.
“We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused by these challenges and are using this medium to assure our customers that every effort is being made to expedite the completion of the 33kV substation project and restore full power supply to Lalupon community and its environ community.
“As a customer centric company, we are deeply concerned about the supply situation, as such we have held over ten meetings with the leaders of the communities to explain the situation.
“These meetings with community leaders underscore our commitment to resolving these issues and improving service delivery,” he said.
Also addressing the situation, Coordinating Head, Corporate Services, Angela Olanrewaju explains that delay in the 33kV substation project is due to pending financial support from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Both Lawal and the Oyo Regional Head, Olumide Akinmusire, have assured residents that efforts are being made to improve power services in the community.