Ogun Community Threatens Legal Action Over Four-month Blackout
Residents of the Arepo community in Obafemi Owode Local Government Area of Ogun State have threatened to seek lawful means of redress over persistent power outages, alleging that they have barely enjoyed two hours of electricity supply daily in the last four months.
The residents, under the aegis of Concerned Residents of Arepo, also demanded compensation for the prolonged outages, saying the situation had made life unbearable and paralysed business activities in the community.
In a letter dated July 20, 2026, and addressed to the Managing Director of Ikeja Electric, the residents said what was much more agonising recently was the epileptic power supply and incessant power outages suffered by the entire Arepo community in the last four months, despite its upgrading to Band B consumer grade.
In the letter signed by Kehinde Adeyemo and Friday Erhabor on behalf of the Concerned Residents of Arepo, it was stated that the customers were upgraded to Band B under the service-based tariff regime in 2024, expecting a minimum of 16 hours of electricity supply daily.
However, the residents alleged that the community had received far less than the required supply.
“However, in the last four months, the residents in Arepo barely enjoy two hours of light cumulatively per day, and this has made life not only unbearable but paralysed business activities in the community,” they stated.
According to them, several attempts to get Ikeja Electric to resolve the problem had yielded no meaningful result.
They recalled that some residents staged a peaceful protest at the electricity distribution company’s corporate headquarters in Ikeja on May 8 to draw management’s attention to the situation, but nothing was done by the DisCo.
“Several attempts have been made in the past to make your company redress this situation to no avail. Precisely on the 8th May this year, some of our residents carried out a peaceful protest to your company’s corporate headquarters at Ikeja to officially register our protest to the management,” the residents said.
They alleged that despite promises of an immediate solution, the situation had persisted.
“All promises of immediate redress by your company have yielded no fruits, as residents continue to groan under perpetual darkness, sometimes running into weeks,” they stated.
The residents also complained that several consumers in Arepo remained without electricity meters and were still being billed through estimated billing.
“We wish to inform and remind your company that contrary to the key mandates under the enabling law, so many residents in Arepo are yet to be metered by Ikeja Electric and are therefore still operating under the old arbitrary estimated billing of the distribution company. This is not only unfair but unjust to the consumers,” they said.
They subsequently demanded immediate improvement in electricity supply to the community in line with the service-based tariff arrangement.
The residents also demanded the provision of electricity meters to all consumers and upgrading of supply feeders, including the Akute feeder and Oke Aro stations, as well as rehabilitation of obsolete equipment and transformers blamed for frequent tripping.
They further demanded compensation for the electricity supply they claimed to have lost during the four-month period.
Among their demands was “immediate compensation to the Arepo Community for all lost hours of electricity supply in the last four months, in line with the relevant provisions under the new Electricity Act.”
The residents warned that they would pursue other lawful means of seeking redress if Ikeja Electric failed to make meaningful progress within one month of receiving the letter.
“We hereby wish to notify you that if within one month of this letter, there is no meaningful progress on these above-stated demands, we shall have no choice but to seek other alternative but lawful means of seeking redress and meeting the power needs of members,” they stated.
Copies of the letter were sent to the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC Forum in Osogbo, Lagos State Electricity Regulatory Commission and the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission.
The residents described the Arepo community along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway as an area with about 850,000 residents, saying the prolonged electricity crisis was adversely affecting businesses and residents.
They appealed to Ikeja Electric to treat their demands with dispatch in order to restore a good relationship between the company and the community.
The DisCo’s spokesman, Kingsley Okotie, has yet to reply to messages sent by our correspondent for a reaction.
