By Ibrahim Abdul’AZiz, Regional Correspondent
Residents of Jimeta-Yola, and Girei, Adamawa State have cried out over power outage adversely affecting the city and its environs for the past few weeks, accusing Yola Electricity Distribution Company (YEDC) of “total neglect” amid insecurity plaguing the society.
Worst hit areas includes: Yola, Bachure, Wauru- Jebbe, Demsawo, Nassarawo, Bajabure, Vunikilang and some parts of Girei local government areas, but Jimeta Business unit of the power company attributed it to ‘’ a fault at Jambutu Sub- station.’’
A cross section of residents, who spoke, said the outage had affected many businesses.
Muhammed Aminu , a resident of Sangere suburb said: “We used to enjoy steady electricity, but now it is total blackout.
“We thought it was just the usual fault that will be rectified in a few hours, but we are now on the fifth day.
“Staff of Yola Electricity Distribution Company that we spoke with told us that the fault was in Jambutu , we are losing hope,”
A soft drink seller, Mary Baba, also lamented the lack of electricity, which she said was affecting her business seriously.
“You know Jimeta is hot and people seriously patronize cold drinks now but this lack of electricity has dwindled our sales by 70 per cent,” Baba said.
Some “soft” drink hawkers, Doris Yohanna, and Larai Musa, also lamented about the outage that had adversely affected their businesses because they could not find ice blocks to buy to cool their drinks.
Musa said: “Most of our gains go to ice block sellers who are also complaining of spending much on diesel to power their generators.
“The only solution is to repair the fault for us to have electricity.”
While residents complained, however, for mechanics servicing generators, their businesses have recorded a boom.
According to a mechanic, who simply identified himself as Ado Mechanic, there is a sudden rise in his business as people are bringing their generators to be serviced.
“As you can see, I have seven generators now to be serviced unlike before when there was light, we hardly service two generators a day.
“During the period that light was steady, we had to learn how to service ‘Keke Napep’ to survive.”
The story goes same in Taraba
Just like Adamawa, the story goes the same in Jalingo and other parts of neighboring Taraba state with residents lamenting that the continuous power outage had paralyzed social and economic activities in many areas.
John Alheri a resident of Magami and Baba Mafindi of Anguwar Karofi all decried low -shedding being experienced in the last few days.
“The situation is bad and it kept deteriorating with no explanation from the concern authority, YEDC and why we are experiencing this!?’’ Alheri exclaims.
When contacted on the blackout, the public relation officer of YEDC, Aliyu Ardo , said ‘’the fault was with the fault of transmission –breakers at TCN sub stations in Yola.’’
He said work was ongoing by the Transmission Company of Nigeria to fix it and restore light to affected areas in Adamawa and Taraba.
He said residents might still experience outage here and there until the faulted transmission –breakers are fixed .
Ardo assured that YEDC and transmission company (TCN) would step up on timely clearing of faults as they occur in order to increase power supply.
“We appeal to our customers to bear with us as all hands are on deck to improve supply to the affected communities,” he said.
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