PRESS STATEMENT
IKEJA ELECTRIC RAISES ALARM OVER EROSION THREAT TO POWER TOWER
Lagos Nigeria: September 21, 2016: Ikeja Electric Plc has cautioned residents in Shagamu Estate against activities around the 33KV Power Tower situated by the Estate canal. The tower, which is currently at risk of imminent collapse has been negatively impacted by erosion of the subsoil.
To prevent any risk of danger, supply to the power tower has been cut off with engineers currently working to supply the affected areas through alternative power lines. The outage will temporarily affect Abule Egba, Tabon-Tabon, Pen Cinema, Orile, PowerLine, NYSC and Arigbanla and environs.
Speaking on the development, the Head, Corporate Communications, Felix Ofulue said, “Cutting power supply on the tower is a “safety-first” approach to ensure that no live is endangered. The base structure of the pole is quite solid as it rests on pile foundations, however, relevant agencies are looking at ways to mitigate the extensive erosion that has occurred in the area. It will be reckless to act otherwise”. He urged residents affected by the outage to be patient as technical teams were working on backfeeding their locations using alternative lines.
Ofulue, who noted that the inclement weather, persistent rains and weak soil structure had caused an increase in cases of fallen poles, snapped wires and fault related outages, called on residents to remain vigilant and careful especially during rains. “We have issued multiple rain/inclement weather alerts which provide some guideline for our customers on what to do in case of an emergency or accident”, he concluded. He advised customers to visit the company website for weather updates and alerts which will not only provide them with safety tips and guidelines which may save lives.
In a similar development, Ofulue, who called on all stakeholders to exercise greater safety consciousness, confirmed that efforts to replace the poles, damaged conductors and burnt 400m of conductors attached to Oko-Oba Feeder were already underway.
The electricity assets were destroyed when a truck conveying Premium Motor Spirit (petrol) lost control and ran into 11kV concrete HT pole and caught fire damaging the assets. The incident occurred at about 01:45am on Tuesday.
