Shiroro Youth Movement has called on the management of North-South Power, formerly (Shiroro Hydro Power Authority) to review its operations in line with the demands of the host communities or face the wrath of the people.
The group which had embarked on peaceful protest over what it termed “insensitivity of the North-South Power to the plight of Shiroro people,” also visited Government House, Minna, to register displeasure over the activities of the energy providing agency in the state.
After handing over their protest letter to Governor Sani Bello for onward delivery to Abuja, the secretary of the group, Habilu Ayuba, enumerated a number of challenges the community faces as a result of neglect by North-South Power, adding that they can no longer stomach environmental injustices meted out to Shiroro people.
Ayuba said that Shiroro community hardly enjoys electricity supply despite though they are the host community to the North-South Power hence the need for the intervention of the state government for the company to immediately review supply to the area.
It would be recalled that the North-South Power management is yet to pay tenement rate since the privatization of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) and the community is demanding to know why the sudden stoppage in the payments of the annual rate which is part of a provision of the law.
According to the group’s spokesman, “We demand the immediate removal of Auto-Restore, which enables the North-South Power to automatically disrupt power supply to Shiroro, Gwada, Mutun-Daya, Shakwatu, Gunu and Kuta communities”.
Power supply in the area has been very poor since the privatization of the PHCN because “Electricity supply to the host local government communities in Shiroro should come from the station services via Chast-men as has been the case before the privatization”.
The group argued, “The laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria provides that levels 1-6 workers of any federal establishment should come from host community, but the reverse is the case with the North-South Power”.
Besides those engaged as casual workers, Ayuba said only few people from Shiroro local government council got jobs with North-South Power since its privatization and most of them were retrenched while people from other parts of the country have been engaged to work therein.
According to him, “No indigene of Shiroro is in the managerial cadre. This is a fragrant abuse of federal character principle and Shiroro Youth Movement and the entire people of the council view with dismay the lackadaisical attitude of the management of the North-South Power”.
He said that parts of Shiroro local government council suffer annual flooding down-stream as a result of release of excess water and up-stream as a result of water back-wash which always wash away farmlands and their houses.
The group is therefore calling on the North-South Power and its Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) to as a matter of urgency remedy their corporate social responsibility (CSR) short-comings by providing social amenities for the host community, failure of which the community will be forced to act in a manner that will not be too pleasant to the company.