The Managing Director of Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), Sule Abdullaziz has said that over N2.65 billion have been lost to vandals of power lines in Borno and Yobe states. The destroyed power lines of 330 and 33 KVAs; are located along the Maiduguri/Damaturu and Maiduguri/Damboa/Biu roads in the two states. Abdullazis made these known at the weekend at a Town Hall meeting organised by the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture to address vandalisation of power and telecommunication infrastructure. He said the detonations of 10 high-tension electric towers with explosives along the highways; resulted in revenue losses of N1.77 billion to the Yola Electricity Distribution Company (YEDC) in nine months.
Abdullaziz, who represented the Minister of Power, Abubakar Aliyu said that the valdalisation of power infrastructure, is a national embarrassment to the Federal Government and people. According to him, electric supply has been truncated by suspected criminals in plunging some parts of the nation into darkness for nine months. He lamented that it will cost the federal government N880 million to replace the destroyed power towers in the two states.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed said that the government has invested heavily in providing infrastructure, as well as reinvesting and rehabilitating existing ones across the nation. “In recent times however; such laudable efforts of the government have been flaunted by some unpatriotic citizens,” he noted; adding that such acts comprise wanton destruction of critical infrastructures; deprives the people from enjoying them. He lamented that the railway tracks are also being subjected to wanton vandalism, break railings are being removed, while man-hole covers are pilfered.
He warned that the consequences of such unpatriotic actions and behaviours endangered the lives of people. On protecting the power facilities, he said that the vandals should be exposed, arrested and prosecuted, including the ones that engaged in buying and selling infrastructure items. “The communities should be sensitized, particularly where the facilities are sited,” he said; stating that they are to be conscious of the importance of protecting such facilities.
