The Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) apologized to customers on Monday for power outages in its franchise areas.
It assured customers that the strike by its employees, which caused the power outage, would be resolved quickly.
The franchise area of AEDC includes Kogi, Nasarawa, Niger states, and the FCT.
“Following the National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEEindustrial )’s action, power supply to some of our areas of operation, particularly those on the 11 Kilovolt network, was disrupted.”
“We also apologize to our customers for the inconvenience and disruption.”
“We assure our customers that all hands are on deck to resolve the issues that prompted this action,” AEDC’s General Manager, Corporate Communication, Mr Oyebode Fadipe, stated in Abuja.
In another development, the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) announced that it had sufficient bulk power to deliver to AEDC for off-take and distribution to its customers.
Mrs Ndidi Mbah, its General Manager, Public Affairs, attributed the power outage in AEDC’s franchise area to a shutdown of AEDC’s facilities by its in-house workers union.
“AEDC franchise areas include Abuja, Nasarawa, Kogi, parts of Edo, Niger, and Kaduna States.”
“TCN regrets this disruption and assures Nigerians that normal bulk power delivery to AEDC will resume as soon as the injection substations are opened for onward electricity supply to consumers,” she said.
According to a News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) correspondent who visited the AEDC headquarters, the office was locked and only members of the NUEE could be seen outside the gate.
According to Mr Opalowa Eleojo, NUEE’s Organising Secretary, the strike was caused by pension contributions deducted from workers’ salaries for 20 months but not remitted to their Pension Fund Administrators.
He also stated that the AEDC had not remitted the thrift and cooperative society deductions for the previous eight months.