Electricity Workers Go On Strike, Causing Blackout In South-East 

The dissatisfied employees complained about FG allegedly failing to pay their entitlement.

By Omotayo Olutekunbi

The whole South-East region has entirely stopped receiving power.

On Wednesday, August 17, 2022, in the afternoon, the five South-East States went completely dark due to the development.

The Enugu Electricity Distribution Company PLC’s (EEDC) activities have been affected, Emeka Ezeh, Head of Corporate Communications, acknowledged to reporters.

He said, “as a result of this development all our feeders are out of supply and this has affected supply to our esteemed customers in Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo States.

“Consultations are ongoing among critical stakeholders in the power sector to address this issue and possibly restore supply.

“The Management of EEDC hereby encourage customers and neighborhood associations to be vigilant and protect the electrical installations within their environment against elements who might take advantage of this outage to vandalize these installations.”

“We, therefore, appeal for continued patience and understanding while this is resolved,” he noted.

This is in response to the industrial action taken by the National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE) at the power plants owned by the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN).

After preserving the peace for two months, the union yesterday threatened to resign at the end of the ultimatum if its complaints were not resolved.

The disgruntled employees protested that the Federal Government of Nigeria had allegedly failed to pay former employees of the disbanded Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) their due in December 2019.

The managing director/chief executive officer, MD/CEO, received a 14-day ultimatum from the union on May 18.

The union threatened to stop working at the end of the deadline if its complaints were not rectified in the circular headlined  “Unresolved issues on the year 2021 promotion exercise and others,”