Ojodu village is located along Ajaokuta-Itobe-Lokoja express road. The community has suffered a lot in the past, even before it was connected to the national grid. It has been the effort of some key personalities and member of the House of Representatives that the community got the transformer we are using till date.
Each time the transformer developed fault, we took it upon ourselves to contribute money to repair and has being maintaining it for years, since the government neglected us each time we called on them. The best they will do is to make public pledges and never care to fulfill them.
We have being in darkness since last year November. That is about 7 months in total black out.
We put our heads together and decided to take it upon ourselves to ensure we repair the old transformer since we don’t have enough resources to get a new one for the community. But at some point the amount involved was increasing on a daily basis, and we end up spending almost a million to ensure everything works out perfectly.
Now, the pain on our side is on high as all our efforts seem going in vain but we can’t be fooled to fold our arms and allow Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) officials monitoring this axis to go free. They have done much harm to us than proffer solution and now we are even suspecting them to be the one behind all the damages of the past, not until they prove us otherwise.
AEDC officials were in Ojodu on Wednesday, 17th of July 2020, and the contractor handling the servicing of our transformer job finished his job successfully and start the transformer for test running same day.
We learnt that the transformer was said to be on for 24hours to warm it very well since it has been down for months.
The contractor switched it on and left. Not up to 3hours the transformer stopped working after AEDC officials worked on it. Both AEDC and the contractor were informed immediately. They both agreed to show up on Thursday to check what really happened on Wednesday.
I made calls and was told something called ‘lightening arrestors’ got burnt. You will be shocked what took place Thursday, can you believe that those AEDC staff actually did wrong connection and connected some wires meant for low tension to the high tension? It was on Thursday the contractor discovered that and in the process, the coil of the transformer got burnt. The contractor vowed to involve AEDC directors in charge of our area and their boss said that they should give him time to come over and see it himself, that he can’t believe what the contractor was saying.
At this juncture, any AEDC officials involved in the process must be called out to say what they know and get penalized.
We may not know them but their representatives in Ojodu should know them. This shows that AEDC officials are not happy that they are not the one given the contract to fix our transformer. Now that their wrong connection has been done and one of the coil got burnt we must work with the contractor that everyone involved must not go free. Community must charge them to court and they must repair the transformer.
Enough of this rubbish from AEDC! We have been in darkness for more than 7 months and they didn’t care. Why are they coming out now to increase the level of our pains?
Justice must be done between Ojodu community and the AEDC in charge of Ojodu Ogane transformer this time. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.
It’s a bad experience that none of the Kogi East representative showed up to assist with the situation.
Please, if you are led to support this poor village to restore her light as a group, individual or an NGO the door for such assistance is wide open.
– Mawedo Joseph Nicodemus
For: Ojodu Community
Email: mawedojosephnicodemus@gmail.com
Tel: 07033408800, 08050704134.
