Electricity workers start strike, South-East goes into blackout

Power distribution has been halted completely in the entire South-East states.

When this started: The development threw the five South-East States into a total blackout, Wednesday, August 17, 2022, afternoon.

Emeka Ezeh, Head, Corporate Communications, EEDC, confirmed to reporters that operations across the franchise area of the Enugu Electricity Distribution Company PLC (EEDC) have been disrupted.

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 neighbourhood associations to be vigilant and protect the electrical installations within their environment against elements who might take advantage of this outage to vandalise these installations.”

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

Why there electricity outage in Nigeria: This is following the industrial action embarked upon by the National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE) at the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) power stations.

After 2 months of keeping the peace, the union, yesterday, threatened to down tools at the expiration of the ultimatum if its grievances were not addressed.

What their issues are: The aggrieved workers complained about the alleged failure of the Federal Government of Nigeria to pay the entitlement of former staff of the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) in December 2019.

What you should know: On May 18, the union issued a 14-day ultimatum to the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, MD/CEO.

In the circular titled “Unresolved issues on the year 2021 promotion exercise and others,” the union threatened to down tools at the expiration of the ultimatum if its grievances were not addressed.