Owners of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, MSMEs under the Sura Association in Lagos State have protested the lack of electricity supply in their business community.

The business men who besieged the headquarters of the Eko Electricity Distribution Company, EKDC in Marina Lagos singing solidarity songs said they are tired of what they called “the Supply of darkness” by the Disco, a situation which had affected their businesses adversely.

The protesters carried placards with various inscriptions such as “EKDC, allow FG deregulation to work,” “EKDC is from public monopoly to private monopoly,” “Stop disrupting our businesses,” “Sura Association says no to EKDC, we want IPP.”

The Sura complex is a multipurpose business community with over one thousand shops comprising caterers, printers, tailors, producers of locally made gift items and other MSMEs requiring constant supply of electricity for production.

The Chairman of the Association of shop owners at the Sura complex, Mrs Bunmi Ajayi who said they had been battling poor electricity supply and exorbitant billings for many years now, explained that many of the occupants who could not afford to run generators had left because of the lack of electricity which had killed their businesses.

Mrs Ajayi said the Association was dissatisfied with the service of EKDC and wanted the Disco to hand-off the supply of electricity because the Association was about getting an alternative through Independent Power supply, IPP.

Another member, who is the Assistant Financial Secretary of the Association, Mr Kayode Okunola claimed that EKDC lacked the capacity to distribute the required power and should abide by the advice given by the Minister of Power, by pulling out.

Attempts by some of EKDC management staff to cajole the drum beating protesters to meet them in camera were rebuffed as they demanded that the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of EKDC should come out to address them.

After about one and half hours, the MD/ CEO of The Disco, Mr Adeoye Fadeyi who thought the issue was about the disconnection of the Sura Complex from the grid but was quickly corrected by the protesters and presented with a letter containing their demands, assured them that his organisation would look into their issue.

Fadeyi thanked the protesters for their orderly conduct and pointed out that the Disco had no intention of putting undue stress on its customers.

He promised that the shopping complex would be immediately reconnected while the company would find time to resolve the other issues at stake.

“We have found out that you have been disconnected, and I have tried to get the specifics of when, how and under what circumstances and what really happened.

“We are law abiding organisation and operate in an industry that is regulated and I thank you for maintaining law and order, you have the right to come here today and protest peacefully and understand exactly what we are doing about your power,” he said.

Adeoye, however, said Eko Electricity was fully cooperative and would engage the leaders of Association of Shop Owners of Sura Shopping Complex in a robust discussion to resolve the problem.

“For us there are issues that are in court as you know which obviously I cannot speak about the details of it. There is no intent on the part of Eko Electricity and I speak on behalf of the Board and management to create undue stress or put pressure on you the customers. There are a lot of issues and one of the things we would right away is to make sure you are reconnected while we deal with the issues on ground,” he said.