The Management of Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBDEC) has strongly condemned the spate of assaults and robbing its staff in three different offices in Ilesa Business hub, Osun region within the past week. The Head, Media Communications and Strategy of the company, Mrs Angela Olarenwaju, made this known in a statement made available to newsmen in Lagos over the weekend.
According to IBEDC, the dastardly act was carried out by some hoodlums from Bolorunduro and Olomilagbala Communities.
It said,the company is disappointed at the attitude of the hoodlums who attacked the staff of the company at their various offices in Isare Service unit, Isokun Service unit and Ilesa Business Hub office, Oke- Omiru in Ilesa metropolis with various weapons such as guns, cutlasses and cudgels at about 8.30 am.
“It was gathered that our staff had resumed to their various offices to discharge their lawful duty when some hoodlums from Olomilagbala and Bolorunduro communities, both under Isare service unit at about 8.30 a.m. had attacked the staff there, beating, shooting guns into the air, forcefully gained entrance into the cash office and carted away with the money from collections and handsets of some staff.”
The company insisted that the act was uncivilised and unacceptable to the management of IBEDC.
According to the company, it is ready to serve its customers better and cannot jeopardize the safety of its staff at the expense of satisfying our customers. “When a community is hostile to our staff we will take a drastic step until the concerned community come to terms with the company.
“In the case of this incident, we urge the security agencies to bring the perpetrators of this dastardly act to book and ensure they are prosecuted accordingly so as to serve as a deterrent to those who want to trail the path of violence to express their grievances.
“As a company we have numerous complaint channels that our customers can go through to lodge their complaints without resolving to violence to the extent or robbing us, causing bodily harm on our staff and destroying the properties of the company.
“IBEDC wishes to advise our esteemed teeming customers to always adopt all our complaint channels to register their grievances in a civil way other than resorting to violence as it will not yield any positive result.
“Our complaints channels include our Service units, business hub office, customer care unit, regional office, head office customer care unit and Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC).
“Also, we have our community engagement meetings, reactive customer engagement meetings, radio and television programmes where they can also lodge their complaints and it will be attended to and resolved.”
