Kagini Residents Fault Senator Aduda’s Transformer Gift

By McPatrick Michael Linus
The senator representing the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Philips Aduda, has come under severe criticism from residents of Kagini over his donation of a “transformer” to the community towards the March 28 general elections.
It could be recalled that during his campaign tour of the FCT, Aduda wooed Abuja residents with electrical transformers, among other incentives, as part of his campaign strategies.
Forty-eight hours to the election, the people of Kagini, a village along the popular Kubwa-expressway within Abuja Municipal Area Council, got what was supposed to be the transformer largess. However, it has since been discovered that the power equipment Aduda donated to the community was not the much-needed transformer but a step-down pack, which residents say is also faulty and not needed at the moment.
A reliable source who pleaded anonymity told The Dream Daily how residents have been in the dark since last year when one of the transformers serving the community went bad as a result of overuse and alleged incessant tampering by PHCN staff.
“Aduda promised us some transformers among other basic social amenities that we currently lack but decided to wait till the eve of election before he brought a faulty step-down instead of a transformer,” she said angrily.
Another source was also vehement when narrating how they were allegedly deceived by the community’s chiefs to vote for Aduda, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate in the election, against their initial choice of the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidates, who they believe would provide the much needed social amenities.
“How can they give us a step-down, when what we need is a transformer? This is the reason why this part of the community is still in darkness. We demand a replacement with a functionary and bigger transformer. In fact, this one should be immediately remove since it’s not serving any purpose,” he said.
Consequently, small power generators popularly called “I pass my neighbour” are noisily in use most part of Kagini. The Dream Daily caught up with Ms. Joy, who owns a hair-dressing salon in the community as she rushed to a nearby black market spot to buy petrol for her generator that was about to run out of fuel as she worked. “For how long shall we continue like this? With our hard-earned money, we buy petrol to power our generator. As if that’s not enough, we were deceived by someone who was supposed to serve and defend our interest. With the election over now do you think these politicians would still remember us more so that the two chiefs who were supposed to make sure this nightmare is over both enjoy steady electricity? For this reason, the rest of us can go to hell for all they care,” she lamented.
Other residents who also spoke with The Dream Daily called on the FCT authorities to come to their aid by giving Kagini a functional transformer, especially “now that the rain is here and mosquitoes will soon be all over us in the community.”