By
Gloria Abutu
As power outage persists in parts of the country, communities have been urged to increase vigilance on power installations within their locations.
The Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN Interface Project Manager, Engr. Bello Babayo Bello made the call while speaking to Fombina News in Yola.
Recent technical failures of Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN towers have plunged several communities, including Adamawa, Jalingo, Gombe and surrounding communities into darkness, disrupting power supply to residents and businesses.
Some of the affected communities which are under the Yola Electricity Distribution Company YEDC franchise areas are grappling with the aftermath of these tower collapses, which have strained the region’s electricity infrastructure.
Engr. Bello Babayo Bello expressed concern over the incident of vandalism targeting power installations.
These acts which according to him often results in significant financial losses, have prompted a call for heightened vigilance from customers residing in various locations.
Highlighting the critical role of community awareness, Engr. Bello emphasized the importance of knowing individuals accessing transformers and substations.
He urged Customers to exercise caution and verify the identity of anyone approaching these vital infrastructure components, particularly during periods of power outage when the risk of vandalism is elevated.
According to him, “We have a lot of our installations running into hundreds of millions of Naira. So we are urging all our customers living in any location to be very vigilant to know who is coming to that transformer.
There is no light now, so there is a possibility of vandalism, so they should put an eye to make sure that they protect the installations around them.”
“Because even after the completion of the tower repair, if a transformer is vandalized, it means we have to source for money before we fix it for them,” he added.
Pointing out that the outages are beyond the control of the YEDC as they solely operate within the distribution subsector of the power value chain, the interface manager said tower maintenance and restoration efforts fall under the purview of the TCN which is actively working to expedite repairs and resume power supply to affected areas.
“Towers 288, 289, 290, and 291 are completely down, and as a result of that, the supply to our franchise areas of Adamawa, Jalingo and some other communities around are affected, which is something beyond our limit as a distribution company.”
“We have three main chains in the value chain. We have a generation; we have transmission; we have the distribution subsector. We are the distribution subsector. These towers do not belong to us as a distribution company, it belongs to the transmission company of Nigeria,” he explained.
“As we speak today, they are working tirelessly day and night with their teams to ensure speedy restoration of these towers so that we restore supply to our esteemed customers in a very good time. That is our concern,” he assured.
Stressing the mutual interest in maintaining reliable power supply and sustaining business operations, Engr. Bello therefore urged residents to fulfill their financial obligations by promptly settling energy bills consumed before the occurrence of the technical failures.
“We are in business to serve our customers and, equally, to make money. Our team are going out to collect money for the energy they consumed in the month of March. They have consumed this energy before this incident happened. So it is their responsibility now to pay us back our money,” Bello appealed.
As the region grapples with the lingering power outage, coupled with the extreme weather condition, stakeholders are closely monitoring the situation, hoping for a swift resolution and the eventual restoration of power to the affected communities.
