Residents of Ilorin, Kwara, have decried high tariffs charged by the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC) and the incessant power outage in the city.

They expressed concern about the high bills which the company (IBEDC) gave out monthly to consumers without actually reading the meters. The residents accused IBEDC of refusal to give them prepaid meters, which they said would put an end to the expensive bills.

A resident of Ita-Kure, Alhaji Yusuf Olayinka, also reacted to the expensive bills. "The increase is illegal, unfair, unjustifiable and a further exploitation of the already exploited Nigerians.

"I cannot pay for what I am not enjoying," Olayinka said. A frozen food seller at Asa Dam Road, Mrs Olorunyemi Adele, decried what she described as "unreasonable high tariff".

Adele said that the electricity bill was hiked without an improvement in power supply. "My frozen food got spoilt most times because of the incessant power cuts and I could not operate my generator since there was also scarcity of fuel.

"It is high time we stop paying for darkness because we are not getting value for the bills we pay," she said. Residents of Offa Garage area vowed to resist disconnection of their power supply for failure to pay electricity bill.

A spokesperson of the residents, Mr James Adebayo, said that they hardly had electricity for eight hours in a week. "We are, therefore, waiting for any IBEDC staff that will either climb our poles or disconnect the source of our power supply," he said.

An electricity consumer, Mr Ayo Bukoye, advised NERC to put a mechanism in place to stop expensive bills being sent by the distribution companies. Bukoye urged NERC to ensure that electricity distribution companies provide prepaid meters to consumers to stop the high bills.

He said that efforts to obtain the reactions of officials of IBEDC proved abortive as none of the officials was ready to speak with NAN Correspondent who visited the office.