Members of Ifedawapo in Ita-Alamu, a suburb of Ilorin, the Kwara capital, on Saturday threatened to stop paying their monthly electricity bills until the power supply was improved in the area. The community issued the threat during a peaceful demonstration against the epileptic power supply in the area.

The placard-carrying protesters with different inscriptions, including “NEPA give us light regularly”, conducted themselves orderly.

The demonstration took them to a divisional office of the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC) in the area where they registered their grievances over the state of power supply in the community.

Alhaji Lateef Lawal, the leader of the protesters, said that the community had been grappling with erratic power supply for the past four months. He added that several complaints made on the issue had yet to bear fruit. He said the only response from the electricity distribution company was what he called an “exorbitant bill”.

Lawal made it clear that his people were not in the organisation’s office to unleash violence but make their problems known to the authorities. He told the company’s officials that members of the community were ready to redeem their monthly bill if the supply of power was considerably improved.

Lawal also called on the IBEDC to provide the Ifedawapo community with a brand new 33KVA transformer to rationalise the power supply.

He also appealed to the state government to take urgent steps to arrest the situation by coming to the community’s aid.

The Distribution Supervisor of IBEDC in Ita-Alamu area, Bello Sikiru, who received the protesters, described the power situation as a general phenomenon and appealed to them to bear with the company. He said his office had forwarded a report to the highest authority on the state of power in the area.

Sikiru added that the new investors in the power sector had yet to mobilise them with the needed materials. He, however, advised the community to submit their letter of grievances for onward dispatch to the company’s head office in Ibadan.