By Terna Chikpa, Jalingo
The Arewa Youth Assembly has condemned the recent vandalisation of three towers (T1690, T1691 and T1692) along the Biu–Danboa 132kV transmission line and the stealing of 16 spans of conductors, which has continued to leave the North East region without proper supply of Electricity.
Dr Usman Shehu Jada, North-East coordinator of the Arewa Youth Assembly, disclosed the group’s displeasure in a press release on Friday, also blamed vandals for being responsible for the act.
According to Jada, “it is rather unfortunate that these vandals have refused to allow the full restoring of power back to the North East by constantly targeting and destroying towers and other facilities.
“It is an act of deliberate sabotage to frustrate the TCN’s effort of meeting the May 27th Deadline of restoring power fully back to the North Eastern part of the country and it is no coincidence that it happened at such a time when the TCN is putting in massive efforts to reconstruct the already four vandalized towers.
“These vandals must be stopped, we on the National Assembly to enact laws carrying death penalty on anyone found vandalizing any facility, otherwise they will keep destroying facilities made for the public and by so doing exposing the host communities to dangers of the destroyed towers and unending darkness.
“It is paramount for North East Stake holders, The Vice President, National Security adviser, North East Governors to come together and rally support for the Hon. Minister of Power and TCN Management to ensure the protection of critical government facilities and installations in the North East. We appeal to the security agencies to work round the clock to avoid these continuous re-occurrences of balkanising power equipment and facilitates in North-East and Nigeria.
“We call on the well-meaning compatriots to be a watch dog, to report any suspected move to security agencies. It is important to state that citizens and indigenes of the North-East should be patriotic and treat government facilities and installations as their own, but not as TCN.
“In view of this, we are embarking on a series of awareness campaign and sensitization to guard against frivolous and ill-advised unethical practices. The Federal Government through the Ministry of Power and TCN have been up and doing, directing their efforts towards stabilizing regular power supply in this region. We call on the general public to unequivocally pledge their support. We urge the Ministry of Power and the TCN management to remain resilient and focused, and not to give up on its fight and efforts against vandals, as they now have our full and unalloyed support towards fully restoring power back to the region,” the youths called.
