Officials of power company attacked over outage

THREE officials of Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company, IBEDC, were attacked by some irate youths of Esa-Oke community in Obokun local government area of Osun State, over two days of power outage.

 According to sources, youths of the town, who were said to have been worried by the outage, attacked officials of the power company with machete inflicting various degrees of injuries on them.

 It was learned, that the youths, after chasing the officials out of their office in the town, later caught up with them near Owamiran of Esa Oke’s palace and beat them up, using dangerous weapons. 

It further gathered that the angry youths broke into the company’s office and vandalised it, carting away some personal effects belongings of the staff, along with some service wires. Reacting to the development, Osun region’s management of IBEDC, in a statement condemned the attack, and explained that the outage was as a result of the routine maintenance of their 132KVA line by the Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN.

 The company’s spokesperson, Kike Owoeye noted that supply was restored after the maintenance work had been completed and stressed that the exercise was necessary for quality and safe wheeling of energy as indicated by TCN.

 The company, however, expressed displeasure over actions of the youths, which left three of its staff injured with bruises after machete was used on them.

 The statement reads in part: “We reiterate that the outage was due to the maintenance procedure by the TCN in Osogbo which is not under the control of IBEDC as a distribution company.

 “The company has various channels of communication with which the customers can lodge their complaints for speedy attention. Sadly, none of these channels were explored before these youths unleashed terror on our staff: the Service Manager, Customer Relations Officer and the Technical Service Supervisor.

 “With this development, we have been forced to withdraw our services temporarily from Esa-Oke and its environs to prevent further damage to lives and property. We plead with all our esteemed customers in Osun state and across our franchise area for their understanding and cooperation.”