By Moses Okorie
Business owners at a popular printing and building materials hub in Abuja known as Commerce Plaza on Tuesday, February 16, 2021, protested an alleged extortion by the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) who have hiked their light bill from N2,000 to N10,000 without any notice.
The artisans and other traders raised the alarm when officials of the AEDC came to the area to bill each shop N10,000 including some of them that use only a single electric bulb.
According to one Abdulateef who lamented the high billing, there is no way he would be expected to pay N10,000 for a single bulb in a workshop that is just about 3 feet by 5 feet in size.
“They brought N10,000 bill to me; I have only one bulb which I only on from 630pm. How can I pay such amount? This is extortion. Let them bring prepaid meters”, he said.
He insisted that if AEDC would be fair in their charges, they should allocate prepaid meter to each customer, so that they can only pay what they use.
Another shop owner, Emeka Ede also expressed sadness to hear that he is expected to pay the of N10,000 despite the economic reality of the country.
He sald, “We were paying N1,000 before they inflated it to N2,000. Now they want us to pay N10,000 each. This is injustice. We are finding it difficult to even pay the N2,000, how much more N10,000.
As at the time of filing this report, the Commerce Plaza Tenants were mobilising to go to the office of the AEDC office at Apo, Abuja, to make their grievances known.