Ekiti community in street protest against BEDC, demands pre-paid meters, infrastructure

Residents of the Olorunda community in the Ado- Ekiti local government area of Ekiti State have staged a street protest against the operations of the Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC).

During the protest, the community demanded that the company should stop giving them estimated electricity bills they described as “outrageous,” saying the situation was “unacceptable.”

The members of the community had marched on the major streets of Olorunda and later converged on the community’s health centre, where the leaders addressed the aggrieved crowd.

They demanded that “if the BEDC fails to supply prepaid meters to the homes in the community, they should not come to collect money from us again.”

The community president, Pastor Gbenga Ilesanmi, who spoke on behalf of the people of Olorunda, called on the state government to intervene on “the huge estimated high bills”, saying the residents had spent about N21 million to provide transformers, electric poles and cables, as well as on labour for the provision of electricity in the community, “’with the BEDC not providing anything.”

Ilesanmi said members of the community were “tired and frustrated with the high bills without supply of electricity,” adding that the bills ranged from between N3,000 and N11,000.

Efforts to get the reaction of BEDC were unsuccessful.