Electricity-starved residents of Magboro, Ibafo, Mowe and other communities in Ogun State have said they will soon unveil their next line of action as power supply from the national grid has remained elusive for over 10 years.
Some of the communities were connected to the grid in last December and supplied electricity by the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company Plc, a development that was greeted with excitement.
The communities were connected to the grid through a temporary line, the new Abeokuta 132/33KV substation, as the Oke-Aro 330/132/33kV transmission sub-station meant to feed the Mowe/Ibafo/Magboro axis was not ready for energisation.
But the residents’ excitement was short-lived as they were again thrown into total blackout that month.
The Oke-Aro sub-station, which was built under the National Integrated Power Project scheme by the government-owned Niger Delta Power Holding Company Limited and inaugurated in May 2015, has suffered several setbacks.
A leader in Obafemi Owode Local Government Area, Ogun State, Mr. Jimi Olusanya, who told our correspondent last month that the blackout had assumed a worrying dimension, said on Sunday, “Nothing has happened since then, but let’s see what will happen by next week. The communities are planning on the next line of action. We want to give them some time to see how far they have gone before challenging them.”
The NDPHC, which owns the Oke-Aro sub-station, said it energised the line early last month but there was a fault discovered along the line around Lambe, adding that a termination kit that was not properly terminated was changed and the conductor touching a channel iron was separated.
A statement made by the General Manager, Communication and Public Relations, NDPHC, Mr. Lawal Yakubu, said then that the process of re-energising the line was expected to be achieved by the next weekend when the distribution company responsible for the network was expected to supply electricity to its customers in the affected areas.
But that did not happen and the NDPHC had yet to reply to an email sent on Wednesday by our correspondent regarding the line as of the time of filing this report on Sunday.
Our correspondent gathered that Ibafo, Mowe and Magboro and environs originally received supply from the 132/33KV Ojere transmission station located in Abeokuta. But as a result of the rapid development on the axis that outstretched the existing transmission and distribution infrastructure, the source of supply to them became overloaded and the regular allocated power on the feeder became inadequate.
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