Residents of Ajegunle, Hospital Road, and Igboji communities in the Sagamu Local Government Area of Ogun State have been groaning over erratic power supply that has affected businesses in the area for the past eight months.
The residents, who spoke with PUNCH Metro on Wednesday, lamented that they had been faced with the issue of poor electricity supply since February 2023 without any significant reason given by the electricity authority.
A business manager in the area, Abiodun Oyeniyi, said the hotel business he was managing in the area had almost closed down at a point when the business could not afford to run due to the high cost of fuel occasioned by the subsidy removal and the poor power supply.
He lamented that the poor power supply had affected the expenses of the organisation, which hurt the employees’ welfare.
“I started managing this business in October last year, and the issue of electricity in this area is so bad that it got to a frustrating point that this hotel could have probably shut down last year because it was doing so much to make guests happy for quality service delivery.
“That means we have to spend a fortune to the extent whereby the owners have to look for alternative means to get money just to ensure that they get things sorted out. So, you can imagine running the property of this nature with a poor power supply.
“More than 85 per cent of the hotel’s revenue is going to just the supply of diesel. We are not talking about the maintenance, the contractors and the suppliers.
“Even if today the government increases the minimum wage to a certain amount of money, not many corporate organisations can do that,” Oyeniyi said.
A resident, Gbenga Oriji, who spoke with our correspondent, noted that efforts made by the community leaders and the House of Assembly member representing the constituency, Ademola Adeniran, have not yielded any positive result.
He noted that the erratic power supply had been an issue in the community for the past eight months.
Another resident, who identified as Abiola, said the erratic electricity supply had compounded the hardship faced by the community as many small-scale businesses are suffering the effect.
Identifying her siblings as artisans, she noted that they are facing difficulties carrying out their trades because of the poor power supply.
When contacted, the spokesperson for the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company, Busolami Tunwase, said that the poor power supply to the communities was as a result of the low supply the distribution company was getting from the Transmission Company of Nigeria.
“The erratic supply is due to the low allocation from TCN. However, we appeal to our customers to promptly report any technical fault to our offices for resolution. We apologise for all the inconvenience,” she said.
