Uche Cecil Izuora
Residents in the Aba Ringfence comprising nine of the 17 local government areas (LGAs) in Abia State experienced their first power outage this weekend.
The Aba Power Managing Director, Ugo Opiegbe, confirmed the outage saying. “We are sorry we lost supplies from Heirs Energies, working in partnership with the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL)”, Opiegbe said.
“We deeply apologise to our numeous customers who have been enjoying ceaseless supplies since December 17, the first set of electricity consumers to enjoy such service in Nigeria in several years”.
The Aba Power MD did not disclose the cause of the gas supply stoppage from Heirs Energies which operates Oil Mining Licence (OLM) 17 at Owaza in Ukwa West LGA in Abia State, but sources linked the incident to possible attack by suspected vandals, searching for crude oil and petroleum products from the Eastern Gas Network at the weekend.
Gas and oil pipelines are frequently laid together, making it difficult for oil thieves to differentiate them.
Attacks on critical public infrastructure like telecommication, electricity and petroleum facilities have been growing in Nigeria with parts of Abuja which was recently plunged into darkness when suspected thieves attacked the transmission facilities in the Federal Capital Territory.
Opiegbe said that despite the gas supply loss, there is electricity in some parts of the Aba Ringfence.
“We quickly switched to the Niger Delta Delta Power Holding Company (NGPHC) for a quick fix because we don’t want our cherished customers, who have been expressing satisfaction with our service since December, to be without power”, he explained.
“The problem we are having is that not all of them are benefitting from the NDPHC supplies because the supplies are limited”.
He assured that the Aba residents that “we will not rest until consumers in all the nine LGAs in our coverage area begin to enjoy uninterrupted electricity once again”