Nsukka, the host community of the University of Nigeria, Enugu State, has been thrown into darkness following the power outage that befell the town since three days ago.
Residents, who spoke with NewsNGR on Monday, said MainPower Electricity Distribution Limited, which took over the running of electricity distribution from Enugu Electricity Distribution Company last year, was yet to explain the cause of the outage. It was gathered that the blackout affected every part of the town.
A welder at Timber market, Emmanuel Ezugwu, said the development had crippled his business.
According to him, “My customers are angry with me. They don’t want to hear that their jobs are delayed. I charged them based on the availability of power supply from MainPower.
“But since this outage, my work has slowed down. Gas is very expensive, and if I use my plant to carry out the jobs, I will end up borrowing to complete them; not to talk about making profits.
“I am annoyed because very soon, these MainPower boys will be sharing electricity bills. They easily disconnect people’s power supply and ask them to pay N5, 000 reconnection fee. They exploit us the way they want.”
Clement Eze, a pub operator at Isi-Akpu, also recounted his frustration over the development. He said, “I think our pains in Nigeria have come to stay. The volume of sales has drastically reduced since this government came on board.
“We have been managing to keep going. As if that is not enough, power supply suddenly stopped. This is not the first time in the recent past. Nsukka is peculiar.
“Even before this sudden blackout, any day there is rainfall, MainPower people will halt power supply for many hours or days. I think there are businesses they do that we don’t understand.”
A cold room operator at Slaughter Road, Ejike Okeke, said, “We are the most hit. We spend more to keep the rooms chilled because any delay will result in meat decaying, and no customer will hear that.
“And they complain a lot if we increase the charge. This problem has to stop, otherwise, many people will lose jobs in this part of the country.”
Efforts to hear from the distribution company failed as they did not respond to calls put across to them.
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