Unable to hold out against the pressure arising from police authorities and community leaders Ogbomoso Community Youth Forum (OCYF) has converted its planned protest against the highhandedness of the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC), Ogbomoso Business District, to a town hall meeting with officials of the company.
This is contained in a news release by OCYF and made available to ogbomosoinsightonline.com this evening.
According to the news release the decision was taken to accord respect to certain community leaders in the city whom they said have been persuading them to shelve the protest for another time and give the IBEDC authorities time to make amends.
It said aside the community leaders the Area Commander, Owode Police Station, Ogbomoso, and his men have also intervened to appeal to them to abort the planned demonstration.
It added, “We are being told that the pervading insecurity in the country is worrisome and that anything that could aggravate it should be avoided especially in Ogbomoso.
“They also raised the possibility of the protest being hijacked by hoodlums who may want to seize the opportunity to loot shops and destroy public utilities.
“They begged us such untoward happenings should be avoided at this time. We had to defer to them to alter the plan but not to cancel it altogether, we are only altering it.
“In its place therefore we are holding a town hall meeting with IBEDC officials at Ogunlola Hall, Ojaigbo, Ogbomoso, on Monday, June 21, 2021, starting 9.00am. We expect residents of Ogbomoso and environs to be at the gathering, to participate in the event.”
Disclosing that the release was the outcome of a meeting this evening at office of the Area Commander that involved IBEDC officials, added, “As well, we will ensure they shut their offices for 7 days, during which period we expect them to have started complying with our demands.
“These include stoppage of prepaid meter racketeering, start release of meters to those who had paid, stop coding of meters, halt issuance of crazy bills, and burdening of customers with repairs of transformers, poles and cables.”
In addition, the group demands stoppage of distribution of bills for the next three months, and that henceforth the bill should not exceed N1, 000 (one thousand naira) per month per residential house. They had raked a lot fraudulently from the people they need to refund some now by way of reduced bill more so customers don’t enjoy stable supply.
“We also demanded they start attending to the responsibility of maintenance of their facilities which they even made communities to provide in the first instance. We as well demanded that they improve electricity supply in Ogbomoso and surrounding towns, they must indeed start to give us 20hours electricity supply per day.
“Finally, we demanded apology from them, they must apologize to OCYF as a token of their willingness to toe the path of justice.”
