Four out of the six local government areas in the Ondo South Senatorial District – Irele, Okitipupa, Ese-Odo and Ilaje – have been in darkness for ten years. HAKEEM GBADAMOSI, who visited the area, reports the residents’ frustration through the years.
Despite being the goose that lays the golden eggs, the Ondo South senatorial district of Ondo State has suffered neglect in many ramifications. Ironically, the case of the people is like the proverbial son of a meat seller, who was made to eat bones.
This, indeed, is the case of residents of four of the six local government areas in the Ondo South Senatorial district: Okitipupa, Ilaje, Ese-Odo and Irele LGAs.
Responding to the challenges faced by the area, youths, community leaders, student bodies, women associations, traders and other residents in Ondo South have protested the state of the communities.
Taking the lead among the people’s agitations is the power outage in the area, which has lasted almost ten years. Aside this, there are also complaints about non provision of potable water supply and the dearth of standard schools and quality healthcare.
The belief by the communities is that if the availability of power supply is addressed, other improvements will follow. Power outage has greatly affected social and economic activities in the area, just as people of the area have resigned their fate to living without electricity.
A visit to some of the areas such as Okitipupa, Ilu Tuntun, Igbotako, Ikoya, Igbokoda, Aboto, Ode-Aye, Igodanisa, Irele, among other towns within the district, revealed that they have been experiencing power outage for almost a decade.
A resident of Okitipupa, Temisan Inuwadun, said the people of the community have become used to darkness, noting that darkness had become more or less a lifestyle. He also stated that men of the underworld had taken the advance of the darkness in the area to perpetrate crimes, even though they had expressed their grievances to various administrations.
A community leader in Igbotako, Ayeleso Job, said the disconnection of the area from the grid had afforded some elements the sad opportunity to vandalise transformers and cable wires in the area, noting that the cables along the bush had been destroyed, while many of the transformers were just empty boxes, because many of their contents had been stolen.
It was same story in Okitipupa and Igbokoda, the commercial heart of the district, as it was gathered that many artisans had left the town because of the power outage, while some had retired to become commercial motorcyclists. Efforts to speak with the traditional ruler of the town, Oba Afolabi Odidiomo, were not successful, as he was said to have travelled out of town. However, a palace worker said the power outage has been a source of concern to the monarch, and that several efforts had been made to restore electricity in the area.
According to him, traditional rulers from the area had met severally and sent appeal letters to subsequent governments, but it yielded no positive result.
He said: “We have been using generating set in the palace and this costs a lot of money. We have discussed with officials of the Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC), but not much has been forthcoming in that regard.”
Investigations by Nigerian Tribune revealed that many residents of the area pay to charge their mobile phones and rechargeable lamps at a generating set powered centre. Operator of the centre, Akinluwa Peter, explained that he decided to float the business “to keep body and soul together.”
He said: “Non-availability of power supply has been a major problem here and I designed this to feed my family. Most of the industries in this area have gone moribund because of the power outage. The Okitipupa oil palm industry and the Oluwa glass have gone into extinction and it does not seem like there are plans to revive it because of this electricity challenges in this area. Our social life is zero here.”
Bring-Back-Our-Light organisation laments electricity challenges
Speaking with Nigerian Tribune, the Coordinator of the Bring Back Our Light organisation in Ondo State, Pastor Olumide Akinrinlola, said various efforts had been made to ensure that electricity was restored in the area. He accused the BEDC of contributing to the people’s predicament, noting that “this problem of electricity has crippled many businesses here.”
He said: “BEDC is an organisation whose presence is more of social media than physical within the coverage area. BEDC is well known for mass disconnection without prior notices or due process. The company is renowned for plunging communities and several local governments into darkness, so as to compel the people to pay whatever amount levied against them, without justification for such indebtedness.
“Disconnecting a whole community or local government from the national grid, instead of electricity consumers who are owing, is not only illegal but inhuman, manipulative, and wicked. Since BEDC took over from PHCN in their coverage areas, they do not have any official obligations. No single transformer has been given to any community by them. Rather, individuals are donating transformers to communities when needed.
“Cost of replacement of damaged electricity facilities in many communities is incurred by electricity consumers in affected communities. BEDC doesn’t care about procurement of new facilities to replace faulty facilities where necessary. They have shifted some of their responsibilities to electricity consumers. All they care about is mass disconnection of electricity consumers with the aim to maximising profit at the detriment of electricity users.”
Recently, youths of the communities from the coastal area took to the streets to protest against power outage in the area and lamenting utter marginalisation of the riverine area.
The youths, under the aegis of the Ilaje Advancement Forum (IAF), gathered at Igbokoda, the headquarters of Ilaje Local Government Area, chanting various anti-government songs including ‘ko sina, ko sibo’, meaning, ‘no light, no election.’ They blocked major roads in the area and paralysed economic activities for several hours, as the youths, armed with placards embarked on peaceful procession.
Inscriptions on some of the placards read: Ilaje: Enough is Enough; What Offence Has Ilaje People Committed; Ondo State Government Has Failed Us; OSOPADEC is Fake; NDDC is Fraud; The Federal Government Has Failed in Service Delivery; No Light, No Election, among others.
Speaking during the protest, co-convener of the forum, Tokunbo Ehinmowo, decried the deplorable state of the riverine area, declaring that the Ilaje area, despite its huge natural resources and contribution to the country’s GDP, was suffering neglect.
According to her, the protest became imperative “to resist all retrogressive changes that are socio-political and economically created as a result of bad leadership. Ilaje people must intervene in the process of Ilaje development, rather than remain spectators or passive participants in the ebb and failure of governance in the state.”
She lamented the dearth of industries, factories, prevalence of infrastructural decay, environmental degradation, poor empowerment programmes, attributing it to failure of representatives at all levels.
According to her, “For the past ten years, there has not been electricity in all our communities, and this has meted untold hardship on us. The artisans can no longer work, businesses are collapsing and life has become so unbearable for us.”
Apart from the issue of power outage, one of the youths from the area, Oluwajuwon Ogunbiyi, stressed the need for “renegotiation of social contract between the government and the people of the area.”
According to him, “We are the local government producing the largest chunk of money to the Federal Government through our oil resources. We surrender everything we have for the government under social contract to take care of us.”
Ogunbiyi, who spoke on the recent amnesty programme by the Federal Government, noted that most projects initiated by Ondo State Oil Producing Development Commission (OSOPADEC) and Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) were abandoned, while the N6 billion Ayetoro Shoreline Protection project and other intervention funds by government agencies had not provided the expected results.
Aside abandoned projects and underdevelopment, he noted the high rate of crime, insecurity and maternal mortality due to acute shortage of basic social amenities and infrastructure, especially, power, stating that “governments at all levels have not provided the necessary facilities to ensure development in the area. What we have seen is flag-off of various projects across the state but not much has been done on execution.
“However, if our light is not restored, government should forget 2019 elections. None of the leaders in Ilaje communities will be allowed to campaign. INEC should forget elections in the riverine areas.”
We have been marginalised –Egbe Omo Ilaje
Also speaking on the infrastructural challenges affecting the area, the national president of the Egbe Omo Ilaje, Prince Iwamitigha Rapheal lrowainu, said: “We have been politically marginalised; we are much aware that we are economically marginalized; we are very much aware that we are infrastructurally marginalised.”
He said it was regrettable that the area which made the state qualify as the fifth oil-producing state in the country was suffering despite being the “hen that lays the golden eggs.”
“For more than 10 years, Ilaje has been in total darkness. Ilaje as a local government doesn’t have general hospital. Quality of education is another matter. If you go to the riverine area, the schools have no teachers, no facilities. We are going to ensure that these things are addressed.
“There are a lot of factors that are responsible for the insecurity in this area. The political leaders are involved, as well as traditional institutions and corporate individuals. They engage these guys as bodyguards, and even engage them during elections to cause problems.”
Our people trek long distances to get water –Community leader
A community leader, Thomas Ajaka, who lamented that there was no government presence, stated that “we learnt that we will continue to live in darkness and this is caused by the inability to reconcile accounts between our people and the BEDC. The state government has been promising to intervene, but we still live in darkness.
“The quality of education has gone down tremendously over the years. There are no teachers and this is affecting our children here. If you visit the riverine area, you will pity our children. There is no government presence here at all. This has very much affected the quality of education in this area and has placed our children in serious disadvantage as they cannot compete with their counterparts both within and outside the state.
“Our people still depend on unhygienic sources of water for their daily domestic needs. They trek long distances to get water. The Aboto water they promised us is there wasting and uncompleted. The effect of this on the health and well-being of our people is serious as water-borne disease is imminent.”
He called on the state and Federal Government to appropriately compensate people of the area by providing and making available infrastructural facilities.
We are working hard to find lasting solution –OSOPADEC
Efforts to speak with the Public Relations Officer of the BEDC in Akure were not successful as he was said to be out of the state. However, it will be recalled that as part of efforts to restore electricity in the Ondo South Senatorial district, the state government signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the management of the BEDC.
At the time, the BEDC Chief State Head in Ekiti and Ondo states, Mr Edgar Ernest, estimated the debt of the communities in the area to about N1.9b, and assured that the management of the BEDC will soon restore electricity to the area.
However, the Chairman of OSOPADEC, Honourable Gbenga Edema, said efforts were in top gear by the state government to ensure that electricity is restored to the whole district. He also noted that he had been at the forefront of the vanguard to decry the outright marginalisation of the riverine communities.
Edema said: “I sympathise with them and also feel their pains because an idle hand is the devil’s workshop. We agree that electricity is key to development. A lot of our youths who have trained as artisans need energy. The government of the day has been trying so hard to see how it can restore electricity in that area. We were in a meeting with the Executive Director of NDPHC and he briefed us what is being done to solve the problem.
“We have been collaborating with the BEDC too and other stakeholders, and the government will soon find lasting solution to this. I also sympathise with them because for some of those things they were protesting about, some of us had also raised the alarm in the past.”
He disclosed that the delays were due to the huge challenges the present administration met on board in solving the problems, and restated the commitment of the state government to developing the riverine communities.
Edema, who said “the progress made might be slow but steady,” appealed to the people of the riverine area to be patient, assuring them that “the whole world will soon see the good things we are doing at OSOPADEC and as the government.”
CREDIT : TRIBUNE
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