File photo: Protesters.

Yesterday, consumers of electricity in Sapele, Delta State, who were tired of epileptic power supply blocked the Sapele axis of the Benin/Warri highway. They could not take it any more!

The protesters, comprising youths, men and women, demanded for at least 12-hour power supply from the Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) and the stoppage of crazy bills.
The protesters, carrying placards and singing defiant songs said they would not have trooped out if they could get just 12 hours of electricity a day from the Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC). In fact, one of their grievances is crazy bills the company distributes despite what they called a lousy power supply.

Mr Solomon Abeke, one of the organisers, said: “What we are demanding is an improvement in electricity supply.

“Just imagine, they give us only three hours light every day. We have two generating stations and a transmission station here in Sapele; yet we live in perpetual darkness,” he said.

Mike Egbune, a legal practioner, argued: “Companies are closing down. Small-scale businesses are folding up; imagine, twice now we have protested and passed our demands to them. They keep promising without doing anything. They say we owe over N2 billion; they want us to pay for darkness?” Egbune asked.