MICHELLE ORMAAHLEECHAR NM, here in Lagos State, NIGERIA, the EKEDC continues to give users of electricity EXTREMELY HIGH, ARBITRARY ESTIMATED BILLS if they have no pre-paid meters

and it’s not just occupants of buildings with no electricity meters
or
occupants of buildings in which there are electricity meters but the meters are not functional
that they give these high estimated bills

they are actually also callously? in the practice of given such arbitrary, spurious?, estimated bills to persons who actually have the old electricity meters in the buildings and whose old meters are still working .. and in fact are still working very well.

Michelle ohbee nm, isn’t this behavior and practice of giving high, estimated bills to persons who actually have the old electricity meters in the buildings and whose old meters are still working
.. and in fact are still working very well ..
● an act of thievery ?
● an act of predatory financial/economic malevolence ?
● an act of wickedness ?  

one also wonders if such procedure
is actually legal ?
i.e actually acceptable? within the laws, if any, of the Federal Republic of Nigeria ?

and at the parameters,
if any,
by which such activity of giving high, estimated bills to persons who actually have the old electricity meters in the buildings and whose old meters are still working is “legalized” … if it is ?  
and in fact, also carried out publicly and openly ?

perhaps, i should make the background history of how things got this far in Nigeria a bit clearer
.. especially for the purposes of those who might either not be familiar with Nigeria or may not have been following developing trends in Nigeria.

what it is, Michelle nnmaah nm, is that :

● Nigeria used to have a federal government of Nigeria agency / parastatal called Power Holding Company of Nigeria ( PHCN ) which was responsible for generating electricity for Nigeria and distributing such/this generated electricity across Nigeria.

● this agency/parastatal used to be called National Electricity Power Authority of Nigeria ( NEPA ), however, at some point, some folks felt, for whatever reasons best known to them, that the name should be changed and so a name change was effected.

● the agency used to be somewhat fairly effective in carrying out it’s functions, however, at some point, particularly after the 1989 de-valuation of the Nigeria national currency – the Naira, it’s services began to go down hill and power outages / power black-outs began to more experienced increasingly across Nigeria.

● in view of the observation, that the services of PHCN ( formerly called NEPA ) had gone down-hill, Nigeria decided to bring in private sector players into the function of generating electricity for Nigeria and distributing such/this generated electricity across Nigeria.

● these private sector players are/were called ELECTRICITY DISCOS the term DISCO there being a shortening of the term DISTRIBUTING COMPANY and so, in fact, the name ELECTRICITY DISCO actually means ELECTRICITY DISTRIBUTING COMPANY.  

● the ELECTRICITY DISCOS have been in operation since October?, 2014 and so have been responsible for distributing electricity across Nigeria for all of ( 2021 – 2014 = ) 7 years now.

● the ELECTRICITY DISCO in charge of distributing electricity for the MAKOKO / SABO / YABA areas of Lagos State, Nigeria is called EKO ELECTRICITY DISTRIBUTION COMPANY OF NIGERIA PLC ( EKEDC )

Michelle aezeegboh ohbee nm, this company i.e EKEDC has followed a procedure of giving out estimated bills
to users of electricity who are
● occupants of buildings with no electricity meters
or
● occupants of buildings in which there are electricity meters but the meters are not functional

Nigerians and Lagos State, Nigeria residents have
no problems or issues whatsoever
with a company or any business person or any business entity
giving out bills i.e billing for it’s/his/her services and/or products.

i mean, it is only fair after-all that
if you provide a service or a product
and persons use your service or product,
the users of your products and services should pay for such use.

the issue with EKEDC has been that EKEDC GIVES VERY HIGH, ARBITRARY, ESTIMATED BILLS TO VIRTUALLY EVERY ONE WHO DOES NOT HAVE THE NEW PREPAID ELECTRICITY METERS

and Michelle my dear, that term “ EVERY ONE ” there includes persons who actually have the old analogue? electricity meters in their buildings and whose old meters are still working .. and in fact are still working very well !!!!!!!!!

another issue with EKEDC is that SEVERAL PERSONS ( including myself ) HAVE APPLIED FOR THE NEW PRE-PAID ELECTRICITY METERS AND HAVE NOT RECEIVED i.e BEEN GIVEN ANY PRE-PAID METER
even though some of these applicants have made the application for years in some instances and several months in other instances.

Michelle ohbee nm, there are actually rumours that some applicants for the PRE-PAID METERS actually made PAYMENTS for the meters along with their applications and despite collecting all these monies for payments from such people, EKEDC has not given them meters despite the happenstance that they have made the payments alongside their application for PRE-PAID METERS for years in some instances and for several months in other instances.

the observation, Michelle nm, about the ESTIMATED BILLS by EKEDC include that :

● these bills are arbitrary

● these bills are not based on any scientific measurement procedures known to mankind
especially as
the EKEDC is not known to send any of  it’s engineers or technicians to visit a building and take an inventory of the equipment there based on which some form of estimation of the occupants’ usage of electricity may be arrived at
before giving out an estimated bill.

EKEDC just summarily send out bills containing any figure they wish as the electricity charge to all occupants of buildings with no digital? PRE-PAID ELECTRICIY METERS every month

● the estimated bills are high .. extremely very high ..
and are sometimes as high as, for example,
N53,000 a month or
N115,000 a month or
N69,000 a month or
N78,000 a month
for a flat i.e an apartment in a residential building where there is no industrial equipment or any factory.

such high scientifically base-less arbitrary bills are viewed by many persons as being :
● outrageous
● parasitic
● predatory
● malevolent
● extractive
● extractionary
● wicked
● un-fair
● in-sensitive
● in-appropriate

and yet despite the many complaints of Nigeria residents against these un-fairly high and extremely high estimated bills by EKEDC, ►► ►

( reference links :
1. https://punchng.com/ekedc-give-proper-billing/
2. https://guardian.ng/business-services/consumers-lament-outrageous-electricity-billing-despite-benchmark/
3. https://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/08/nerc-asks-ekedc-resolve-festac-consumers-complaints/ )

►►► EKEDC continues to give out arbitrary high estimated bills

a case perhaps of a bullying enterprise preying on it’s innocent customers ???