Residents of Mende/Araromi area of Lagos, unable to stomach their incessant exorbitant electricity bills, engaged, confronted and protested against the Ikeja Electricity Distribution (Ikeja DISCO) Company.

The residents complained that they barely get 9 hours of electricity in a month but the attendant bill the Disco presents is usually in tens of thousands.

Frustrated by the excessive charges for services they did not even enjoy, they took their destiny into their hands and approached Ikeja DISCO.

While talks are still ongoing with the DISCO, YNaija spoke to Comrade Kehinde Talabi, one of the leaders of the Araromi/Mende Residents Consumer Protection Advocates on the struggle by the residents of the community to get better services from the DISCO and be charged appropriately.

Speaking on what prompted the rebellion against the DISCO, Kehinde said “the exorbitant estimated bills & failure to meter us adequately. Precisely the January 2016 bill and later bills that followed to date.”

The people of the community had requested that the Ikeja DISCO give them meters that will appropriately read and charge them accordingly.

The comrade however, disclosed that an satisfactory response has not been received from the DISCO.

He said, “They are in a better position to say. We have not gotten a satisfactory response from them in that regard either. It was only a street that was serviced with the AMI meters and others left for reasons best known to them.”

Kehinde said the residents are undeterred and will continue demanding for an improved service in a civil way that we have adopted “by writing more letters, using the media, collaborating with like minds to facilitate quick response from Ikeja Electric, especially to provide meters as emphasized in our letters to them and to meet with them when and where ever to jointly find a common ground in terms of palliatives.”

Noting that the movement against the DISCO has received massive support from different quarters, Comrade Kehinde stated that while the people of Mende/Araromi are in talks with Ikeja Electric to write off the pending over estimated bill, the group would continue to fight for the matter to be resolved.

“We have only just recently decided as representatives, to inform all the residents concerned, to pay whatever we can afford or perceived to have been the right consumption for the periods in question,with Ikeja Electric hopefully, to write off the remainder of the over estimated bills from January 2016 to date.

“This is however, subject to what the outcome of our meeting with the Ikeja Electric.

“By and large, no resolution has been reached for now. We have met before and we will continue to meet with them until the matter is resolved officially and peaceably.”