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By Young Erhiurhoro, Warri
Unenurhie community in Evwreni kingdom, Ughelli North Local Government Area of Delta State was recently “thrown into darkness” as a result of a faulty transformer in the community.
Addressing our correspondent on the effects of the power outage during a visit to the community, some residents and small business owners in the community lamented the economic woes on their various businesses.
A business owner, Mrs. Joy Iwhiwhu said, “We have two transformers serving the community at the moment. However, for some weeks now, one of the transformers became faulty and this part of the community is thrown into utter darkness.
“This is greatly affecting our small businesses in the community. As you can see, I’m a provisional store owner. I sell a lot of things. But since the breakdown of the transformer, we are now experiencing very low patronage by customers. Secondly, it’s costly to run a generator these days as a result of the fuel hike. The breakdown of the transformer is telling on us badly.
“Therefore, we are calling on our senator and member representing us at the House of Representatives to quickly come to our aid. We are begging them to provide us with a new transformer to restore power back to us. We need their help at this critical time of the yuletide season,” she said.
Speaking in the same vein, a barbing saloon operator in the community, Mr. Felix Gambriel, lamented the closure of business as a result of the breakdown of the transformer.
Hear him: “As a young boy, I learnt this trade and decided to open my business here. I have been enjoying the business until these past weeks when the transformer serving us broke down suddenly. For now, I’m thrown out of business because my generator is bad and I have no money to buy a new one now. I want to appeal to the Delta State government to come to our aid now. We need a new transformer especially at this yuletide season when we supposed to have much business.
“I want to also advise BEDC officials to embark on maintenance of transformers from time to time to avoid this kind of sudden breakdown. It’s their duties to protect and secure these electrical facilities in our communities. The Delta State government should consider our plight at this time.”
Also, the deputy speaker (Akpohor) of the community, Dr. Johnson Abrucha, said, “As a leader of this community, I begin to wonder the kind of politics our representatives are playing nowadays. Just imagine, since 2019 when these new politicians were voted into power, we haven’t benefited anything from the government, both at the state and at the federal level.
“Now, the community is confronted with a big challenge of putting in order a bad transformer. Where can the community get about N500,000.00 to do the job? We have contacted the BEDC engineers to come and inspect the transformer, the amount of money quoted for us is not what we can afford at this time when there’s serious economic downturn affecting the entire country. Therefore, we are begging Senator Omo-Agege and Hon. Waive, our representatives in the National Assembly to come to our aid.
“We implore them to spread their constituency projects to us here. We voted for them to ascend the offices they are holding today. We want to also beg brothers, Olorogun O’tega Emerhor and Chief Engr Samuel Adjogbe to give us a financial support on how to put in order the faulty transformer. These two sons of the soil have been source of light and hope to our community, even till these days. We want to plead with them to give us a helping hand at this critical condition,” he said.
Meanwhile, all efforts to speak to the public relations manager of the Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC), Ughelli Zone proved abortive as the time of filing in this report.
