The Transmission Company of Nigeria, Port Harcourt Region, has raised the alarm over the rising cases of interference on the Right of Way of its lines in some communities within its six mandate states.
The company also alleged that vandals and thieves were attacking, damaging and stealing transmission lines, power station, transformers and other power equipment in the six states.
The company said the unfortunate incidents in Rivers, Imo, Abia, Akwa Ibom, Cross River and Bayelsa states were posing a huge challenge to power transmission.
To this end, the company called on the Federal Government to deploy military personnel and operatives of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps in the states to help secure power stations.
The General Manager, TCN, Port Harcourt Region, Dr. Inugonum Thomas, stated these while speaking with journalists shortly after a guided tour of facilities at the company in Port Harcourt on Friday.
According to Thomas, the transmission sector is a very important in the power chain, which underscores the need for the transmission lines to be safe at all times.
He said, “Many times we suffer from people attacking the transmission lines, destroying it, removing parts of the towers, making us not to have the transportation done easily.
“I remember sometime when I joined my colleagues to the bushes to see these transmission lines that have failed and what has caused it. We saw some hoodlums even attacking the gas pipeline as well as our own transmission lines. If we were not lucky that day they would have shot us. So, the vandalisation is virtually every time.
He added, “The Right of Way of our transmission lines is another challenge we are having, because most times the moment you come that you want to start a project, the community resident s see that there is movement here, once they see that it is a project that is going to help them, it becomes problem. They will want to stop it by all means. So I begin to wonder how you want to give somebody food and he said no. And he doesn’t even have the food.
“There was a particular project we wanted to construct in Akwa-Ibom, over night the community people dug 500 graves, because they want to demand for compensation.”
The TCN boss alleged that often times in Calabar, Cross River State, as well as in Elelenwo in the Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State, the firm’s transmission lines were vandalised repeatedly for two months until the intervention of security personnel.
On the consequence of such actions, Thomas said, “So I call on the government to help us. If it means sending some military men or the NSCDC to our stations so that they can monitor them, they should.
This is because there are some of our stations where (vandals) have already cut the earth conductors for big transformers that cost almost N800m.”
According to Thomas, when the conductors are severed, technically that machine is floating and can go into flames anytime, adding that the TCN management was executing a number of projects in the past three years because these are projects you don’t do it one year.
On his part, the Assistant General Manager, Port Sub-Region, Ben Ezemobi, said the company was currently installing 100MVA transformer, saying when added to the 180, it would become 280MW to effectively cater for the power needs of Rivers State.
