“No part of Nigeria will accept what APL is doing in Aba, because they’re killing businesses and the government seems not to care about the protests that many residents have been doing since last year. We pay more, they serve us less. I don’t understand.”
Tailors in Aba, Abia State, yesterday, protested against what they described as extortionist activities of Aba Power Limited (APL), a subsidiary of Geometric Power.
They claimed that despite the epileptic power supply in the commercial city, APL had engaged some police officers, who go around some tailor clusters, harassing people in the name of collection of electricity bills.
The protesting tailors equally accused APL officials of coming with soldiers to their business locations, at weekends to disconnect their power supply and scare customers, shop owners and apprentices away from the area.
One of them, Ikenna Agu, appealed to the government to protect him and his colleagues from the extortionist activities of those he claimed were destroying the entrepreneurship spirit of young people in Aba.
“I’m a youth. We all left our various villages to come to Aba to be useful. We have been very productive in the Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) creativity in Aba and doing well, but APL is trying to drive us out of business and ruin our lives.
“How can my small shop be paying N18,000 monthly, when I don’t have up to 24 hours of light in a full month?” Agu queried, adding that the money was besides what they spend buying fuel to power their generators when there was no light. Another tailor, Ugochukwu Iheme, said the authorities were making life unbearable for them stressing that they engaged in the demonstration to expose fraudulent acts found to be inherent in APL activities in Aba.
Ebere Okoro, who also joined in the protest, said “My problem is that the amount they’re demanding in the name of bill is not commensurate with the power supplied. The billing system here is outrageous.
“In my business location, we’re 21, but whenever APL brings bills, they usually bring 28 bills making it an extra seven that we don’t understand. Each of the bills has N18,000 as monthly fee. The APL is forcing us to pay for what we don’t understand.”
