GLOBAL ASSOCIATION OF CONCERNED IMO YOUTHS (GACIY)

PRESS RELEASE

THE BASTARD SPIRIT OF NEPA LIVES LOUDLY IN THE EEDC

Recent events have confirmed our long held suspicion that the Enugu Electricity Distribution Company is a confused orphan lost in search of its identity. One moment it purports to be a customer-oriented business, the next minute it submits itself to be used as a cutlass by NLC President Joe Ajaero to inflict wounds on its customers in Imo State. Just like the defunct NEPA, the EEDC has lost its way and we would not be sorry to see it capsize.

For the second time in less than two months, the power distribution company, which claims to be customer-driven, has picked sides with the ghoulish villain and rogue unionist to cut power supply to the law-abiding citizens of Imo State in a brazen attempt to injure the reputation of the Hope Uzodinma-led administration. At the instance of Mr Ajaero, the EEDC switched off supply to Imo State on March 9, 2023 and again on May 3, 2023 and Mr Ajaero has hardly been NLC President for three months!

While the organized Labour in Imo has renounced the strike as unnecessary and unprovoked, Ajaero continues to drag the NLC in the mud and with it the EEDC in the name of fighting the cause of workers in Imo State. Ajaero is a transactional leader who has at last converted the NLC into his personal mafia – his targets must comply with ridiculous demands or get fed to his mob. His mob-enforcers consist, curiously, of the same unions that broke away from the Nigeria Labour Congress on December 16, 2016 to forge a parallel union called the United Labour Congress, ULC: National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), Nigeria Union on Electricity Employees (NUEE), Nigeria Union of MineWorkers, National Union of Banks, Insurance and Financial Employees (NUBIFFE), Nigeria Union of Rail Workers, National Union of Lottery Agents, & Employees, Association of Nigeria Aviation Professionals (ANAP) and National Association of Aircraft Pilots and Engineers (NAAPE). Ajaero may be the NLC president, but make no mistake, he leads only the old ULC.

What's more, the vast majority of these unions have rebuffed his latest attempt to play God, which was why he took matters into his own hands to disrupt flight schedules at the Lagos Airport. The aviation engineers had serviced planes, and the pilots were ready to fly, to hell with Ajaero's illegal strike!

Ajaero, perhaps having unrequited feelings for CEO Allen Onyema, singled out Air Peace for attack, leading the patriotic airline to issue the following statement:

_“Air Peace has no affiliation whatsoever with the Imo State Government or Governor Uzodimma. Our duty and commitment are to the Nigerian flying public that have paid us. We have a contract with them to deliver. This morning, they [Ajaero's mobsters] carried out a selective attack on Air Peace, took over our counters and disrupted our operations,_

_“While they were doing this, another Nigerian airline was allowed to operate into and out of Owerri. They took over our counters in Owerri, Abuja and Lagos, disrupting over 110 flights of Air Peace. This particular illegal action of NLC and TUC will lead to over N400 million loss to the airline. It will equally lead to massive disruptions and cancellations of our flights across the country today, and that will snowball into the coming days, too._

_"We do not understand why Air Peace and aviation should be selected for this kind of treatment. If they have a grudge against Governor Uzodimma, that should be taken to Imo State. Why are they not stopping road transport workers who are going to Imo State?"_

This is how a responsible service organization should speak: _"our commitment and duty are to our flying public that have paid us"!_ The EEDC by contrast simply cannot find these words because it is biased, treacherous, inefficient and holds nothing but contempt for its customers and would rather see the ruination of the rapidly growing Imo economy under Hope Uzodinma.

The EEDC knows that its customers depend on it for electricity to power homes, offices, businesses, factories, hospitals and schools, but it does not care. In fact it relishes the frivolity of these blackouts as much as Ajaero, perhaps even more. Afterall, it will levy disillusioned customers for power not supplied and expect full payment or arbitrarily disconnect them. We wonder, are the EEDC's shareholders complicit? They must be, otherwise its management should have been out on the streets looking for work. What sort of business is run this way if not one that has refused to challenge the lazy mental model inherited from the profligate NEPA or one whose source of funding comes from political subterfuge rather than energy sales.

The EEDC cannot exculpate itself from blame. It is most irresponsible to insinuate that its hands are tied to its back. It cannot pass the buck to the unions when it has a duty to satisfy its customers. It must find a way to put its customers first or fully unveil its true colours as a political organization.

Of course, Ajaero cannot take his grouse to Imo State because he is duplicitous and has no honour before Imo workers. At a recent press conference, representatives of organized Labour in Imo said the following: 

_"The only issue we have in Imo NLC is the botched election of the new leadership of the union which was declared inconclusive…. What the NLC should have done was to fix a date to conduct a fresh election._

_The NLC President recently summoned all the parties connected with the election at his Abuja office but failed to implement the decisions reached at the meeting. Instead, he insisted that he must force Imo workers to accept his brother and school mate, George Ofoegbu, as NLC Chairman in Imo State. Imo workers are yet to come to terms with the NLC President, Joe Ajaero._

_"It is on this note that we call on the National leaders of the NLC to jettison the proposed strike action in Imo as Organized Labour has agreed not to be part of it."_

In order words, with the full support of the EEDC, Ajaero has put Imo in his armpit, all because of a vow to his schoolmate.

We should call on Electricity consumers in Imo State to get up and hold the EEDC to account. It cannot have its cake and eat it. It cannot breach its contract with its customers without qualms. Its market monopoly is no excuse to treat customers like garbage. Given that many customers are one provocation away from switching to alternative energy, those who love the EEDC have a duty to sue the EEDC that it may purge itself of the retrogressive influence of the spirit of NEPA while it still can.

Mercifully, the National Industrial Court has granted an exparted injunction against the NLC and the TUC from staging any strike action. The EEDC has another chance to act right.

God bless our homeland, Imo. And may her enemies bite the dust.

Signed:
Halluchi Ikemefuna
Director of Press
4 May, 2023