Residents of Arepo community in Obafemi Owode Local Government Area of Ogun State have threatened to pursue lawful means of redress over persistent electricity outages, alleging that they have received barely two hours of power supply daily in the last four months.
The residents, under the aegis of Concerned Residents of Arepo, also demanded compensation for the prolonged blackout, which they said had disrupted businesses and made life unbearable in the community.
In a letter dated July 20, 2026, and addressed to the Managing Director of Ikeja Electric, the residents said the situation was particularly frustrating because the community had been upgraded to Band B under the service-based tariff regime in 2024, with an expected minimum supply of 16 hours daily.
“However, in the last four months, the residents in Arepo barely enjoy two hours of light cumulatively per day, and this has made life not only unbearable but paralyzed business activities in the community,” they stated.
They said several efforts to get Ikeja Electric to address the problem had failed, recalling that residents staged a peaceful protest at the company’s corporate headquarters in Ikeja on May 8.
According to them, promises of an immediate solution have not yielded results, as some parts of the community reportedly remain without electricity for weeks.
The residents also complained that many consumers were yet to be metered and continued to receive estimated bills, describing the practice as unfair and unjust.
They demanded immediate improvement in power supply, the metering of all consumers, upgrading of supply feeders including the Akute feeder and Oke Aro stations, and rehabilitation of obsolete equipment and transformers blamed for frequent outages.
They further demanded compensation for electricity hours allegedly lost during the four-month period, citing provisions of the new Electricity Act.
The residents warned that if Ikeja Electric failed to make meaningful progress within one month, they would explore other lawful means of seeking redress.
Copies of the letter were sent to the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), NERC Forum in Osogbo, Lagos State Electricity Regulatory Commission, and the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC).
The residents described Arepo, located along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, as a community of about 850,000 residents, saying the prolonged power crisis was negatively affecting businesses and households.
Ikeja Electric spokesman, Kingsley Okotie, had yet to respond to messages sent by our correspondent seeking the company’s reaction as of press time.
