Oke Bamikole, a marketer and customer relations officer with the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC), has diverted N87,000 paid by Lamidi Anifa for the purchase of a prepaid meter in Osun State and delivered an inflated bill.

Anifa, 58, lives in the Iyanifa area of the Iwo Local Government Area of the state. She was feeling cheated by the opaque system that enabled the electricity company to give her non-reflexive bills, so she directed Saheed, her son, to lodge a complaint.

Saheed visited the electricity distribution company’s (DisCo) office located off Bowen University road, Oke-Odo, Iwo, to inquire about the process and was told the solution was to obtain a prepaid meter. There, he was directed to meet with Bamikole, who happened to be the marketer overseeing the Iyanifa area. The marketer assured the customer of a timely delivery of the meter, provided money was paid on time.

READ ALSO: IBEDC Violates NERC Order, Refuses to Refund Osun Resident Who Purchased a Meter

Upon the payment, Anifa and her son anticipated a fresh experience about electricity consumption in their home, hoping to bid a farewell to the unpleasant, decades-long estimated billing system. But their expectation was dashed.

“I made a payment of N71,000, including a service fee, for the meter to Bamikole’s personal account after my initial attempts to pay directly via their portal were unsuccessful,” Saheed told FIJ.

Following the payment, Anifa stopped receiving monthly bills. According to Bamikole, it was because the process of acquiring a meter had been activated.

The process of metering commences ten days after confirmation of payment by the company. Four months after the customer had paid the money, Bamikole or any official from the company did not contact her to signify the beginning of the meter deployment, despite repeated requests to understand what was causing the delay.

Bamikole

In January, Bamikole told Saheed that he had not paid the money into the company’s account through the portal. Explaining why, Bamikole said he had spent it to attend to his personal needs and pleaded for the customer’s understanding. The customer accepted the plea.

Bamikole then demanded an additional N15,000 from the customer on the ground that the meter price had increased. Trusting the process, the customer obliged and paid.

Thereafter, Bamikole told Anifa’s son that the portal had been shut down and requested more time.

“He proposed to hold on to the money till the portal was re-opened, but I requested that he refund the money. He took some days before sending the total money to me,” Saheed told FIJ.

Anifa was being charged between N9,000 and N11,000 monthly before paying the money to Bamikole. As of July, she had an outstanding electricity charge of N47,472 on her bill.

Surprisingly, the first bill that was given to the customer in March after retrieving the money from Bamikole came with an exponential outstanding of N216,988. How the company came up with an average of N24,216 per month from August 2023 to March 2024 remains to be understood.

READ ALSO: UCH Unable to Pay Electricity Bills Despite N619m Power Allocation in Last 4 Years

“I reached out to Bamikole for an explanation of the over-bloated charges and he claimed he knew nothing about it as he was not the one preparing the bills but someone outside the service station. My mother is feeling frustrated already. How can we pay for the service we did not receive? I reported the issue to the service manager, but nothing was done. I believe this is fraudulent. His misconduct led us into this new problem of overcharging. If he had not spent the money, we would have got the meter and avoided paying estimated charges.”

FIJ spoke with Bamikole on Monday and Giwa Zainab, the service manager, on Tuesday. Bamikole apologised, saying he knew he was not supposed to spend a customer’s money and promised to write to the company’s headquarters for a credit adjustment to address the overcharge.

Zainab said she never knew Bamikole spent the money, buttressing the promise that the office would make sure the customer was given a credit adjustment. However, she could not give a timeline.