Asaba Residents in Bonsaac area were on the street on Tuesday to decry power outage for about six months .
The residents blamed the blackout to the failure by Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) to replace a damaged transformer in the area.
Protesters, composed mainly of youths and women, carried placards with various inscriptions voicing out intervention from the government.
A protester, Mr Samuel Okonta, revealed that they had endured the “traumatic” six months of darkness, following the failure of BEDC to replace the transformer.
“We are calling on government to sack BEDC as an electricity distribution company because it is obvious it lacks the capacity to perform.
“For over six month now, our community has been in total darkness because BEDC has refused to give us a functional transformer.
Some of the placards read, “BEDC must go,” “Government should sack BEDC” “BEDC is a failed company.”
The Chairman of the Bonsaac Community Development Committee, Mr. Micheal Morah, noted that the distribution company had failed to live up to its responsibility of rendering service to the people.
“Since over six months our transformer got burnt and we wrote to BEDC, it has not responded.
“We even went as far as going to meet them to find a way to solve the problem, but all to no avail.
“The Bonsaac community bought the old transformer, and maybe they are still expecting us to buy another transformer again.
“We pay our bills regularly and as such it is the duty of BEDC as a service provider to replace any damaged electricity installation,” he said.
Morah said revealed that other service providers like the telecom sector usually replaced their damaged equipment without tasking the customers to make such replacement.