The Ibadan Electricity Company (IBEDC) has announced the provision of electricity for the Ijaiye community, an outskirt of Iseyin town in Oyo State, after eight-years of blackout which predated the era of privitisation in the power sector.

The Managing Director of the company, Mr John Donnachie, said in a statement yesterday that the IBEDC had taken the decision to ameliorate the sufferings of the people of Ijaiye realising that community was becoming a strategic economic location in Ibadan.

The Chief Executive Officer said in the statement signed by the IBEDC’s Head of Branding and Corporate Communications Department, Mrs Angela Olanrewaju, in Lagos that the decision became necessary due to the siting of the new railway terminus in the community that would link the one in Agege Railway Station in Lagos State.

He said: “This is coupled with the World Bank road project from Ijaiye to Iseyin making the place a commercial hub for business in less than two years from now.

“Even though their situation was an inherited challenge, we can no longer close our eyes to the sufferings of our customers and the potentials ones in the fast-developing areas critical to our revenue generation.”

Donnachie also added in the statement that during one of the meetings, the community’s monarch, Onijaiye of Ijaiye, Oba Lasisi Akano, appealed to the management of IBEDC to take the town as a new revenue generation opportunity, owing to the infrastructural development taking place rapidly in the area.

Akano said that the length of Ijaye feeder deserves to have an injection substation.

Also, the regional Head of IBEDC Oyo region, Mr Tope Bailey, assured the communities and its environs that there would be increase in the deployment of materials and equipment for the projects in the area for power supply arrangement.

He also assured the communities that their requests for the replacement of fallen poles had been approved, adding that a daily five-hour power supply and plans for eight hours would be realised in a fortnight.

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