By Sunday Elom
The Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors (ANED) has condemned in strong terms the alleged assault of four staff of the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) by soldiers.
Four staff of the Disco according to reports had narrated how they were detained and handed over to soldiers for torture by an army officer, Major General HD Tafida, after they had gone to deliver a demand letter (AEDC/DMU/12-21/118) to him at his Gwarinpa residence in Abuja over his indebtedness to the electricity provider.
Reacting to the report, the electricity distributors said that the action of the soldiers portends danger for the power sector. A statement by ANED’s executive director for research and advocacy, Barrister Sunday Oduntan, stated that, “The AEDC staff were merely going about their legitimate duties.
“The soldiers arrested them presumably on the orders of the General and took them all the way from Gwarinpa to Mambilla Barracks and proceeded to torture and humiliate them. This is cruel, inhuman and unjustifiable,” said Barr Oduntan.
The association also said that the Nigerian Army as one of Discos’ biggest customers should not be known for such conducts. “This is not the first incident of physical attacks on Disco staff. A considerable number of such attacks happen every year when our staff go about doing their jobs.
Let us not also encourage the inflicting of bodily harm to the challenges they have to endure. We should not and will not keep quiet in the face of it,” Barrister Oduntan stated.
ANED therefore called on the Nigerian Army, led by Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen Farouk Yahaya, to intervene in the matter to ensure justice is done. The statement noted that “A lot of effort has gone into repositioning the army in recent times and such barbaric acts are not the kind of thoughts we should be having of our brothers in the military today.”
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