From Scholastica Onyeka, Makurdi
The Management of Jos Electricity Distribution Plc, has denied responsibility for the crisis between youths of Otukpo and Obi Local Government Area, (LGA), of Benue state.
Our correspondent gathered that youths from Obi and Otukpo LGAs clashed at Ijegwu in Obi LGA on Monday, 12 of March, 2023, after staff of the JEDC cut power supply to consumers in the said areas leaving them in darkness for four days.
It was said that while the clashes led to destruction of the company’s property, three persons were allegedly killed in the ensued fracas.
Some residents of the areas who spoke on the crisis posited that the crises between Otukpo (Idoma) and Obi (Igede) people of Benue state which culminated in the destruction of property were orchestrated by the company’ operations.
In his response, Head of Corporate Communications, Dr. Adakole Elijah, who described the insinuations as wrong said “Jos Electricity Distribution Plc wishes to state categorically that the crisis was not occasioned by its operations.
“It is a truism that in an attempt to detect faults in our networks whenever they occurred, the company installed various Isolators at Otobi Ipakangwu, Adum – East, and Deeper Life Camp in Oju. With these Isolators, when there are faults along their routes, they would be opened to enable our technical staff to trace the faults and attends to them expeditiously.
“This was the case when our installations were greatly damaged by a windstorm occasioned by a heavy downpour last weekend in Otukpo and its environs.
“The destruction puts the entire Otukpo axis of our operations into darkness which necessitated us to isolate the Oju, Ado, Ugbokolo, and Ankpa legs of our operations to enable us to attend to these faults to restore supply to our customers.
“The entire Saturday and Sunday were dedicated to resolving the faults and restoring the power supply to Otukpo town.
“On Monday, our crew proceeded to fault tracing on Otobi Ipakangwu – Obi, Oju routes when they were told to go back that youth from Obi Local Government have been mobilized to go and destroy the Isolator situated in Otobi Ipakangwu.
He stated that ” It was the attempts to destroy the Isolator by the Igede youth and the resistance by the Otobi Ipakangwu youth that led to the crisis as the Igede youth insisted that the Isolator must be destroyed.”
Adakole further stated that before this crisis, the company was not in receipt of any complaint from any quarter about the lack of power supply to the warring communities.
He said knowledge, individuals and communities who have complaints about their operations were constantly enjoined to complain to the company through any of their offices or social media channels, “but that was not the case in this matter as no report to this effect was received officially or unofficially.”
He expressed the belief that the remote cause of the Otukpo/Obi crisis may be something different from the issue of Isolator or lack of power supply.
He, therefore urged the state government and the security agencies to critically interrogate the situation carefully with the view to unearthing the real causes and proffer lasting solutions that will forestall future occurrences.