The organized labour in concert with civil society organizations made good their threat to protest against the 45 per cent hike in electricity tariffs as hordes of protesting workers grounded business activities in Abuja on Monday.

Kicking off the peaceful demonstration from the Labour House at the Central Business Area, the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, Trade Union Congress, TUC, and several other groups first had a whistle stop at the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company, AEDC, located at Wuse Zone 4.

They bore placards with various inscriptions such as ; “Don’t increase electricity Tariff,” “Stop estimated billing,” “NERC and DISCOS obey court order, “Give us prepaid meters “We need light not darkness,” “We cannot pay more for darkness. ”

While addressing the crowd, the President of the NLC, Ayuba Wabba stated that the time of taking people for granted is over, that billing all over the world is based on what you consume. He maintained that there must be a stop to the impunity as the regulatory agency is expected to protect the interest of consumers.

“President Buhari must stand with the people as he promised Nigerians and he must revisit the privatisation of power sector. We would not allow where you ‘Genco and Disco’ to exploit Nigerians, and there must be an end to the estimated billing,” he asserted.

The NLC President decried the outrageous increase in the Tariff as a fraud, asserting that it would be rejected by Nigerians. He said that due process in the extant laws for such increment was not followed in consonance with section 76 of the Power Sector Reform Act, 2005 as there has been no significant improvement in service delivery.

He further argued that the fact is that most consumers are not metered as required by the privatization Memorandum of Understanding, MOU, signed on November 1, 2013, which stipulates that within 18 months gestation period, all consumers are to be metered.

While responding on behalf of the distribution company, its Head of Public Relations, Ahmed Shekarau told the protesters that the company would provide 100,000 prepaid meters free of charge to consumers, and same would repeat in the next five years.

Meanwhile, thousands of the protesters are already heading towards the headquarters of the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Agency, NERC, and promised to mobilise to the National Assembly where a formal letter would be handed over to the leadership.

http://dailypost.ng/2016/02/08/happening-now-labour-civil-societies-shut-down-abuja-over-electricity-tariff-increase/

Good...

Uselxss people no steady light yet them won increase tariff.

Since it's privatised now, let's see how Mr president will handle this.

this is serious

..Click *Like if you think the electricity price is fine and Labour/Civil societies is just being unfair to the govt ..


..*Share to join Organized Labour in solidarity demonstration ..

ok

Good riddance to bad rubbish...

ok

Lalasticlala, food don done ..

Abi, you join Labour do 'sit-down strike'

Na OYO dem dey, people wey sell us out during Occupy Naija protest.

[size=14pt]These CLO and NLC sometimes use Nigerians to achieve personal goals.
I am a Nigerian who had been using prepaid meter since 2011.
I have also worked in some other countries and consumed their power as well. I have always prayed that the KWh rate be reviewed up instead of the #750 robbery. The review is an answer to my prayer.
I want to believe those protesting are not benefiting from the #750 robbery called fixed charge.
I did my calculations and found out I will be paying less monthly with fixed charge removed. I also found out I am now absolutely in control of my payment for power usage.
When I travel away for 6 months, I will not be forced to pay #4500 for using nothing.
This idea is good and a way to make power investors more responsible.
To me, it is good news all the way.
Welcome, new tarrif. [/size]

Good we don't regular electricity in the so called power state anymore.stupid Nerc n stupid Disco.thieves.This is the time buhari needs to show Nigeria that he is for all o...if not we go shout for another change o.

Olaolufred:
[size=14pt]These CLO and NLC sometimes use Nigerians to achieve personal goals.
I am a Nigerian who had been using prepaid meter since 2011.
I have also worked in some other countries and consumed their power as well. I have always prayed that the KWh rate be reviewed up instead of the #750 robbery. The review is an answer to my prayer.
I want to believe those protesting are not benefiting from the #750 robbery called fixed charge.
I did my calculations and found out I will be paying less monthly with fixed charge removed. I also found out I am now absolutely in control of my payment for power usage.
When I travel away for 6 months, I will not be forced to pay #4500 for using nothing.
This idea is good and a way to make power investors more responsible.
To me, it is good news all the way.
Welcome, new tarrif. [/size]

Zoo people are not saying that they don't like the idea oh. What they want is to get the smart meter first before you charge them more.

What do we have our senators and national assembly members for?
Can't they see the people that voted them in are being scammed?

I paid 200,000 to get a prepaid meter through corruption just to avoid seeing those useless nepa people at my gate. I hate that nonsense called "estimated billing". And since the service charged has been scrapped, NLC should focus on getting every consumer a prepaid meter. The pricing is fair.

smoothpapuzy:


Zoo people are not saying that they don't like the idea oh. What they want is to get the smart meter first before you charge them more.

But those who use conventional postpaid meter still pay that robbery charge.
Not paying the charge is a plus.