Customers challenge Ikeja Electric over threat to withdraw pre-paid meters

A group of entrepreneurs and customers of Ikeja Electric Plc in Lagos State, at the weekend, sent an S.O.S. to the Minister of Power, Mr. Abubakar Aliu, accusing the electricity distribution company of attempts to crush their operations.

They accused the officials of the energy supplier, believed to be the largest electricity distribution company in Nigeria, of threatening to ”forcefully confiscate their meters under the pretext that the customers were operating theirs with what they termed ”old meters”.

Thrice last week, the workers of the company from Igbobi Undertaking in Somolu area of the state, who mobilised to forcefully uninstall and cart the meters away, were resisted.

"Despite repeated explanations and appeals, the electricity company team, said to be led by a male management official of the company, refused bluntly to listen, saying Ikeja Electric Distribution Company had phased out ‘old meters’,” the affected customers said.

"We appealed to the officers that the meters were purchased by us and that it would be illegal to withdraw the meters, which we bought, without replacement.

"In fact, we told them that we are of the opinion that in a normal a clime, the meters should be replaced when they are withdrawing the current ones, instead of putting us in darkness.

"But to our dismay, they mobilised the second day, in multiples, apparently poised for a showdown with us.

"However, as law-abiding citizens, we maintained our position that our meters were sold to us by Ikeja Electricity Company and further our claims that we paid with bank drafts in favour of Ikeja Electric, yet they insisted on taking away our property,'” the customers told The Nation.

"Yet the team leader, who was simply called ‘Sam’, the Undertaking Manager, told us that throughout the country, meters are the property of electricity distribution companies, hence they are at liberty to withdraw same anytime, even, without notice.

"Despite the argument that we would inform our lawyers about the development, for advice, the Ikeja Electric men resurfaced the third day with ladders, threatening to illegally cart away our meters and we still, as gentlemen and law-abiding citizens asked them to reason.

”At that point, one of them told us that he did not expect us to argue the matter because if occasion demands, he would never resist taking his own meter by the company.

The electricity company, however, said customers with ‘old meters’ should apply for ‘new meters’, while they would be ‘put on estimates’ pending the approval of their application.

”We were mandated to pay for ‘new meters’ costing approximately N117,000.00 each, within 14 days, failure which the officials threatened to take “drastic action.”

Similar situation was reported by a top Lagos State civil servant at the Ipaja New Town Scheme, an estate flagged off by the Lagos State Government in Ilapo Village via AIT, Alagbado Lagos, who recently approached Ikeja Electric for the replacement of her damaged ‘Customer Card’, but was told to buy a new meter “because the present one is outdated.”

According to the consumer, ”they bluntly told me l would need to immediately pay for a new one, which l did not plan for due to the current economic realities.”

Two of the affected consumers, Mr. Dele Oguntayo, a journalist and Mr. Abass Adie, a businessman, narrated how the ‘bold-faced’ Ikeja Electric personnel swooped on his premises for the withdrawal of his meter to which he declined.

Oguntayo said he applied for a meter in 2010, having paid N55,000.00 bank draft to Ikeja Electric and was not metered for several months.

While he was being issued what he termed ‘cut-throat estimated bills’ for about a year, he said ”at a point, despite operating with a stand-by generator for several hours daily, the Ikeja Electric was billing him ”thousands of Naira every month.

"The meter l applied for in the first quarter of that year was not supplied until about a year after my application and payment despite repeated visits and pleas to the company.

"Something will interest you: A professional colleague in a news agency as Energy Correspondent in Lagos had come visiting; and, about a year after his first visit, he promised to take my matter up with the Managing Director of Ikeja Electric.

"He even challenged me that as a journalist, l should have approached either the company’s Head of Public Affairs or better still, the Managing Director.

"So, less than 24 hours of his intervention, two meters were brought to me, same day, on the instruction of the Managing Director of Ikeja Electric!

"My conclusion then was that the officials were hoarding the meters for highest bidders and did not attend to applicants, except through touts.

"It may interest you again that about 10 years later, a female personnel of Ikeja Electricity Company, who claimed to be of the Marketing Department, came with another joker, claiming that the meter I was using was the allocation of a woman within the zone.

"She threatened to withdraw the meter because, according to her, l probably manipulated the system to secure the meter through the back-door.”

"Consequently, I made several visits to see the Manager when they relocated to Obanikoro area of Ikorodu Road, but was always told that their boss was busy.”