Residents of Waterfront Estate, Sekumade Estate, and NBC Community in the Ebute area of Ikorodu Local Government of Lagos State have decried what they described as eight months of total blackout in their areas.
The residents, on Friday, staged a protest at the Ikorodu Business District office of Ikeja Electric, barricading the entrance to the operational office and preventing movement in and out of the premises for several hours.
Clutching placards bearing various inscriptions, including, “IKEDC! You are supposed to be an agent of light, not an agent of darkness,” “Eight months in darkness. Enough is enough. Restore our light,” and “We burn fuel to run the generator for six months,” the residents lamented the hardship the prolonged outage had imposed on them.
They stated that the blackout began in August 2025 after the only transformer serving the three estates developed a fault and was not replaced.
According to the residents, several attempts to engage officials of the distribution company had yielded no tangible results.
One of the protesters, Moshood Aderibigbe, accused the company of insincerity, saying the demonstration became inevitable after months of unfulfilled promises.
He stated, “Before we came out to protest, we had two interfaces with officials of Ikeja Electric so that we could have our transformer fixed or replaced, but nothing was done. What they have done is to pay lip service to our plight. Our women, alongside our councillor, were even at their Alausa head office in January for another interface. They promised to get back to us in three weeks. As I speak to you, they have not gotten back to us.
“At this point, we told ourselves that enough is enough. Our businesses and means of livelihood have collapsed because of the situation. The few privileged ones among us who can afford fuel for their generators are doing so at a huge cost.”
(Punch)
