There was disagreement between electricity workers and court officials after the workers of the Ikeja Electricity company stormed Ejigbo Magistrates’ court in Lagos state, western Nigeria and disconnected its cable over N250,000 electricity debt.
The workers alleged that the court is yet to pay its electricity bill since 2013.
The electricity company in charge of the area said it had given notices to the court, asking it to pay its bills but to no avail.
The disconnection brought the activities in the court to an abrupt end because of heat as both litigants and court officials had to seek succour outside the court.
This forced the court officials to come out and compel the workers to re-connect the cable but they refused and insisted that they pay their bill before electricity could be restored.
This brought an exchange of hot words between the electricity workers and court officials before they went before the magistrate, A.A. Fashola.
The magistrate could however not also talk them to reconnecting power.
It was gathered that it was not the first time electricity workers were making attempts to disconnect electricity supply to the court.
Litigants who were present in court expressed their anger about the court management’s failure and inability to pay its electricity bill.
Some of them said it was improper for the court not to keep the law.
Some said what will be the fate of litigants if non payment of electricity bills brought before the court to adjudicate.
They asked whether the court would have moral justification to adjudicate on the matter.
It was gathered that it was not the fault of court officials at Ejigbo because they do not have such authority to settle any bill.
The source said it is the judiciary at Ikeja that is responsible for paying the bills and they had been duly informed about the bills but they failed to pay.
-PmNews
