Also indebted to the Discos for electricity supplied to them are some of the 774 local government area secretariats as well as the police and paramilitary barracks in the country.
The Discos, however, explained that the overall debt owed them as at the end of 2015 could rise above the current N58 billion when some of them, Ibadan, Abuja and Enugu Discos, submit their updated debt figures.
The distributors speaking through an umbrella advocacy group, the Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors (ANED), in Abuja, said that the huge debts of the MDAs, military and local government areas were affecting their operations.
ANED’s Executive Director for Research and Advocacy, Sunday Odutan, who briefed journalists on the operational status of the 11 Discos, disclosed that the Nigerian army was leading in the list of debtors to the Discos with over N15.1 billion outstanding as at the end of 2015.
Oduntan explained that when an update of the debts would be done, it could rise to over N60 billion, noting that some of the debts were as far back as 2013.
He gave a breakdown of the debts owed by the army to some of Discos to include Kaduna Disco -N6.6 billion; Benin Disco – N2.3 billion; Eko Disco -N1.8 billion and Ikeja Disco – N1.6 billion.
Others are Jos Disco which is owed a debt of N2 billion by the army; Port Harcourt Disco which the army also owes N1.3 billion; Yola DISCo has N435 million to claim from the army for power supplied to its formations under its network while Kano Disco is owed N301 million by the army.
Odutan said of all the debts owed the Discos, that of the military remains quite a task for the Discos to reclaim because of what he described as the oppressive attitudes of the military to staff of the Discos.
He said in this regard, the army from the 351 Artillery Brigade in Abeokuta, Ogun State, had recently beaten a Disco staff for a scheduled power outage even when the barracks which had electricity meters installed within it had refused to pay for electricity consumed by its occupant since 2013.
According to him, the Discos association has written to the Ministry of Defence to complain about the attitude of the military to the Discos as well as make demands for the outstanding debts to be paid.
“The practice of the Nigerian military beating up our distribution staff is totally unacceptable and it has to stop. We are calling on the president who himself is a retired general and was a top military officer to please call his boys to order.
“More than any debtors, the military owes us, especially the army,” said Oduntan.
He added that: “This has to do with the recent acts of the Nigerian military in the Artillery Brigade in Ogun State. On March 6, 2016, at about 10:56a.m., one Major Musa led other soldiers from the Alamala Barracks in Abeokuta to a substation and beat up, Mr. Salau, the man on duty.
“They said they had no power and so went to the injection substation and commanded the man on duty to turn on their power even though there was load shedding and this was in utter disregard of safety practices and that they had enjoyed their own share of eight hours power supply.
“Without allowing the officer to make the safety calls, they forced him to switch it on and beat him up. There are implications from that, if there were repair works going on within their zone, it means all the people working there would have died of electrocution.
“The army formation across the country have turned into a group of oppressors to us. There was one at Ilete in Ijebu Ode which commanded that the Disco must supply to it certain hours of electricity every day no matter what, and these are people who are not paying and have not paid a dime since 2013.”
Odutan also spoke on other issues in the electricity market especially the revenue loses of the Discos from poor collections.
He said: “Many who are metered are bypassing the meters and it is affecting others who are on estimated billing. “We are doing aggressive metering but it won’t happen in a year to meter the five million people that are left.”
