By Tunde Yusuf

The relentless distribution of outrageous and multiple bills by the Eko Distribution Company across  working-class communities of Ajeromi Ifelodun Local Government, commencing in August 2024, without any formal statements of purpose or genuine enlightenment initiative to sensitise the general public on what it stands for, brazenly exposes the exploitative tendencies of the Distribution Companies, particularly Eko-Disco.

For a state that languishes with less than 1000 megawatts of electricity from the national grid, while its population and industrial requirements demands above 15,000 megawatts to power Lagos, these corporate monopolies continue to rake in billions of naira as profit. This egregious profit accumulation occurs without the Disco’s generating sufficient and adequate power to meet the fundamental energy needs and demands of the masses, who  systematically have been categorized into an Apartheid-like system that guarantee power supply exclusively to those in band “A”, while others from band “B-F” experience a calculated rationing of darkness across feeders and transformers.

Since August 2024, Eko Disco has unleashed a torrent of unexplained multiple bills upon electricity consumers, deceptively promising prepaid meters that is never provided after 3years since they started issuing multiple bills. Interestingly, despite a sustained campaign of complaints, protests and numerous confrontations at their corporate offices, to police stations, and the National Human Rights Commission – spearheaded by the vanguard of the Ajegunle Peoples Movement (APM) resistance – the insatiable hunger for profit, at the expense of the energy needs of consumers and improved service delivery, have continued to reflect in every billing circle as more outrageous and fraudulent multiple billing have become the order of the day.

Frivolous and unscientific pretexts, which utterly negate the logical, 21st-century means of measuring energy consumption have been cynically deployed by the management to justify their “metering targets” and the continuous plunder of the Ajegunle people. Currently, the majority of feeders linked to transformers in the Ojo Road axis of Ajegunle, having endured epileptic power supply for over two months, were also burdened with multiple bills. Furthermore, a new payment method was surreptitiously introduced without adequately educating the consumers on these novel mechanisms. This predatory practice has led to extra charges of ₦100 on every ₦10,000 payment, transforming bill payment itself into yet another mechanism of exploitation, while the management continues to amass ill-gotten gains.

WHAT IS TO BE DONE?

Historically, the Ajegunle Peoples Movement (APM) has stood as the unwavering vanguard in organizing and challenging the systemic exploitation of electricity consumers in Nigeria. The landmark judgment delivered by Justice Idris Mohammed in 2016, which decisively struck down the unjust ₦750 fixed charge, remains a people-driven victory, a beacon that continues to inspire not only the brave people of Ajegunle but the entire nation to relentlessly challenge and campaign against the disastrous privatization of the power sector.

Only a sustained campaign of collective resistance, couple with the deployment of incisive slogans, peaceful yet resolute and well-organized series of protests, designed to enlighten and sensitize various communities across Nigeria, remains absolutely pivotal in defeating these attacks and anti-poor policies. This forms the bedrock for organising and mobilising, various communities, as a people united, can never be defeated.

The relentless increase in the price of petrol and its devastating effects on the cost of living crisis, coupled with a supply far below Band E, has ignited a fresh wave of agitation against multiple bills among the residents of Ojo Road. Various communities have emerged as crucial battlegrounds, as witnessed by the current surge of resistance from residents of Ibitoye and Adekoya streets, where abysmal power supply has plagued feeders for over a month. Despite this, the people, continues to receive multiple bills, while the courageous women have peacefully resisted disconnection.

The leadership of the APM has valiantly championed this struggle through direct action, protest, meticulously crafted petitions, and by sensitising diverse communities to the fundamental truth: the privatization of the power sector and the Lagos electricity reform by the Lagos House of Assembly are inherently anti-people policies. These policies have laid the groundwork for massive exploitation, evidenced by the wanton profits hoarded by the company.

The above lays the foundation and necessity for a body like the Campaign Re-Nationalisation of Electricity to spearhead and provide leadership for a movement against multiple and outrageous billing, with the ultimate, non-negotiable demand for the nationalisation of the power sector – placing it under the democratic control of the people, for the benefit of all, and not the profit of a few. Ajegunle is already providing the necessary lessons and steps that need to be taken, with mass meetings held in streets after streets. It must however be stated that this is not enough, it must be extended to all working class communities in the country, with the necessary and conscious intention to provide political education to this mass of angry and ready to fight electricity consumers in nearly working class neighbourhoods in the country that capitalism is the enemy here, and that it is not just the DISCO and the electricity companies that must be fought but as well as the ruling class. To do this successful the question of mass Working people Party to provide the lead in a struggle to end the rule of capital is the only way forward to resolve the crisis in the electricity sector in favour of the working masses.