Anike Starmer, a resident of Abesan Estate in the Ipaja area of Lagos, has narrated how Babajide Ososanya, a marketing officer of Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company (IKEDC), inflated the electricity bills of her house after his demand for a bribe was turned down.
While speaking with FIJ on Monday, Starmer said the incident happened in April.
“On April 22, an IKEDC marketing officer whose name is Babajide Ososanya visited our residence, claiming he needed to inspect the 14 prepaid meters that were installed since August 2024,” said Starmer.
“While carrying out the supposed inspection, Ososanya suddenly claimed there were irregularities in our residence’s electricity consumption and metering.
“He then, rather shockingly, demanded an inducement from us, the residents of the house so he could ‘suppress a report of underbilling’.”
Starmer told FIJ that the residents of the house, however, chose not to pay Ososanya the bribe he demanded.
“We found his demand for a bribe out of place and resorted to not giving him a dime,” Starmer said.
“We had never committed any offence and had always purchased tokens for the meters whenever necessary. Why ask for a bribe when we had not done anything wrong?
“After we refused to dance to his tune by not giving him the bribe he requested, he issued us an underbilling notice and left.
“We all interpreted the marketer’s claim to be a technical impossibility, as the prepaid meter system, by design, cannot be underbilled.”
In the first week of August, the residents of the building were shocked when they discovered that they had been blocked from buying electricity tokens.
“Apart from us being blocked from being able to purchase tokens, we also later discovered that ‘arbitrary debts’ had been imposed on eight out of 14 prepaid meters at the residence,” said Starmer.
“The eight prepaid meter accounts in the house subsequently reflected summed up arbitrary debts of N463,845, N244,362 and N218,030.
“These arbitrary amounts reflected on the meters after Ososanya carried out his strange inspection on them in April.
“When the restriction was eventually lifted and we were able to load units on the metres, we discovered that the debts that had been imposed on the metres were automatically being deducted from the fresh units we load.
“When we recently visited the IKEDC office at Akowonjo for a resolution, another official, whose name I do not know, also demanded a penalty payment of N120,000 from us. He described the sum as a precondition for restoring the electricity supply.
“As we speak, we still do not have electricity. We wrote many letters and emails to the distribution company, but they were not responded to.
“Ososanya’s fraudulent action has continued to keep us in the dark. His underbilling claim is not only untrue, but also making us suffer endlessly because of the lack of electricity.”
On Tuesday morning, FIJ emailed IKEDC for its reaction to all the claims made against Ososanya and the official who demanded the N120,000 penalty fee. IKEDC had not responded at press time.
Source FIJ