DisCos condemn military assault on AEDC staff

By SIMON ECHEWOFUN SUNDAY

The Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors (ANED) has condemned the alleged beating up of staff of the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) by soldiers, saying it portends danger for the power sector.

ANED in a statement on Friday, was reacting to a report in which four staff of the DisCo narrated how they were detained and handed over to soldiers for torture by an army officer, Major General HD Tafida after they had gone to deliver a demand letter (AEDC/DMU/12-21/118) to him at his Gwarinpa residence in Abuja over his indebtedness to the service provider.

“The staff were merely going about their legitimate duties. The soldiers arrested them presumably on the orders of the General and took them all the way from Gwarinpa to Mambilla Barracks and proceeded to torture and humiliate them. This is cruel, inhuman and unjustifiable,” said Barrister Sunday Oduntan, ANED’s Executive Director for Research and Advocacy.

ANED further said the Nigerian Army as one of DisCos’ biggest customers, is not known for such conducts.

“This is not the first incident of physical attacks on DisCo staff. A considerable number of such attacks happen every year when our staff go about doing their jobs. Let us not also encourage the inflicting of bodily harm to the challenges they have to endure. We should not and will not keep quiet in the face of it,” Oduntan added.

The power firms’ group called on the Nigerian Army, led by Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen Farouk Yahaya to intervene to ensure justice is done.

“A lot of effort has gone into repositioning the army in recent times and such barbaric acts are not the kind of thoughts we should be having of our brothers in the military today,” Oduntan noted. (Daily Trust)