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By Chukwudi Abiandu

Your Excellency sir,

This is just to reflect on what you have been doing since you assumed office in Delta State as our Governor. We thank God for your life.

Indeed, you have by certain necessary actions and utterances proven that you truly have the interest of the people of Delta State at heart. So far, you have shown concern and compassion and established the point that you have consideration for Deltans to enjoy abundant living in all ramifications.

Yet, Your Excellency, it is vital to call your attention to a very nagging and critical situation that erstwhile political figures, seem not to take notice of or pretend that the circumstance does not exist, especially as it affects the well-being of Deltans and other citizens domiciled in Delta State. This has to do with the very unpleasant state of electricity power supply in Delta State. To say the least, the Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) that is in charge of providing electricity to citizens has been a nightmare; without doubt, the company has been a pain in the neck of customers because of its parlous attitude to fulfilling its duty of supplying electricity to the people.

BEDC, Your Excellency may want to know, has proven to be irresponsible in the uncomplimentary way it relates with its customers. And the Delta variant of its management has showcased incompetence and greed. It treats its customers with nonchalance, disrespect and utter negligence. The organization does not respect complaints made by customers to it. Oftentimes, customers are forced to buy cables, wires and transformers and pay BEDC officials before they can be installed and thereafter it is claimed by the shameless organisation as its property. As a result, customers have become slaves to this negligent and unreliable business outfit.

The company smiles to the bank regularly as it constantly and persistently taxes and collects tolls from the citizens through the distribution of high bills asking for payment for services it never rendered. Complaints of overbilling, non provision of metres to customers when the law stipulates that the electricity providing bodies SHOULD provide metres to customers. Unfortunately, while the directive that electricity organizations should provide metres to customers is in place, the organization flouts this directive with reckless abandon. Instead, people are forced to comply with their whims and caprice. In the process customers are forced to lick their wounds and live with the unpleasant situation because there is no proper authority to call to order this merchants of mischief that steals from the people their hard earned money without commensurate service.

Your Excellency, what Deltans and other Nigerians living in the state are passing through in the hands of BEDC is one of a harrowing experience. With the high cost of fuel, the situation of total lack of electricity supply in Delta State has heightened the level of distress that people go through. Businesses of all shades are suffering with many proprietors unable to engage their businesses properly because of the pain of lack of electricity supply and inability to fuel their power generating plants.

The effect of this is that for inability to properly engage and run businesses, many concerns are closing up, with workers being laid off. The result is the making of idle hands that have become devil’s workshops, who now create insecurity and indulge in other nefarious activities that impinge on the capacity of security agencies to handle.

The outrageous billings and high tariffs by the BEDC with shoddy electricity supply are unbecoming and Deltans need you to intervene on their behalf. Electricity consumers in the state have viewed with utter consternation how government officials give the impression that they are not concerned about the pain that the people go through in the hands of Shylock BEDC and its shoddy services. Even members of the past House of Assembly as well as the present never raised a voice in the form of a motion to put BEDC on the spot by calling attention to the plight of the people on account of the irresponsible services the organisation  provides to customers in the state. Your Excellency, this is not good enough. Edo state today enjoys better electricity services by the same BEDC because of the interest that Governor Godwin Obaseki and important measures he took in the matter, leading him to chastise the organization with threats to get better electricity providers if the management of BEDC will not improve. Today, Edo State is better off than Delta State in terms of electric power supply.

Your Excellency, this is a call on you to rise to the occasion and help the people of Delta State out of this darkness that BEDC has plunged the state into.