Electricity Distribution Companies (Discos) in the country have condemned the alleged assault on employees of the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) by soldiers in Abuja.
Coming under their umbrella body, the Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors (ANED), the power distributors described the beating up of the staff of the AEDC as “unjustifiable” and cruel”.
ANED’s Executive Director of Research and Advocacy, Sunday Oduntan, said in a statement that the development portended grave danger for the power sector.
The statement was in response to a report in which four employees of the Disco narrated how they were detained and handed over to soldiers for torture by a senior army officer.
The situation was said to have escalated when the AEDC members of staff went to deliver a demand letter (AEDC/DMU/12-21/118) to one Maj. Gen. HD Tafida at his Gwarimpa residence in Abuja over his indebtedness to the service provider.
Reports indicated that the top military officer ordered the torture and detention of the AEDC employees for merely doing their job.
“The staff were merely going about their legitimate duties. They had done nothing wrong. They merely went to serve a letter. How that led to soldiers being sent to look for them is beyond us. It didn’t end there.
“The soldiers arrested them presumably on the orders of the general and took them all the way from Gwarimpa to Mambilla Barracks and proceeded to torture and humiliate them.
“Why in God’s name will you have a grown person flogged for going about his normal, legitimate assignment? This is cruel, inhuman and unjustifiable,” the Discos lamented.
According to the power distribution companies, everyone, whether highly or lowly placed, has an obligation to pay for the power they have consumed.
“If you were paying, no one would serve you a letter of demand. Being an army general does not exempt you from paying for electricity consumed. The Nigerian army as an organisation, is one of our biggest customers across the country, so, this kind of conduct is not the way the army relates with our members,” the Discos added.
By his action, ANED noted that the senior military officer deliberately decided to embarrass the Chief of Army Staff and the entire military.
“More than the opprobrium he has attracted to men in uniform generally though, is the fact that acts like this insert unjustifiable fear in the minds of hardworking Nigerians trying to earn a living. Being a Disco staff is an honourable profession.
“Despite the fact that our power sector has its issues, the daily technical and commercial efforts of these men and women which ensure that the power sector’s relationship with the end users is managed in a way that keeps the economy running is very, very significant,” the Discos stressed.
They alleged that this would not be the first incident of physical attacks on Disco staff as a considerable number of such attacks happen across the nation every year when their staff go about doing their jobs.
“Let us not also encourage the inflicting of bodily harm to the challenges they have to endure. We should not and will not keep quiet in the face of it,” the Discos said added.
The power distributors further called on the authorities of the Nigerian Army, led by the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Farouk Yahaya, to intervene in the matter to ensure justice is done.
“A lot of effort has gone into repositioning the army in recent times and such barbaric acts are not the kind of thoughts we should be having of our brothers in the military today,” the power distributors said.
