RESIDENTS of Gowon Estate in the Egbeda area of Lagos staged a protest on Thursday over a long power outage that has affected several streets in the community.

The protesters proceeded to the office of Ikeja Electric in the Ponle area to complain about the situation and asked the company to restore electricity to their homes.

Community members said the problem started after a transformer serving the area developed a fault. Since then, many homes in parts of the estate have been without electricity for months, making daily life difficult for residents and affecting small businesses that depend on power.

One of the protesters, who identified herself as Ingobu, warned that the community might take stronger action if electricity is not restored soon. She said, “We need our light now. If not, this week or next week, we will lock this place. Nobody will come in, nobody will go out.”

Residents also said they had written to the electricity company about the issue. Part of the letter stated, “In effect, the entire community has been in total darkness since 12th October 2025, while the faulty transformer remains untouched.”

They explained that the transformer serving the area was very old and might need to be replaced completely.

An official of Ikeja Electric later apologised to the residents and assured them that engineers would be sent to examine the problem and work on restoring power.

The protest highlights the wider electricity challenges in Nigeria. Many communities across the country continue to face unstable power supply, frequent blackouts and ageing infrastructure. Because of this, many homes and businesses depend on generators, which increases their expenses due to the high cost of fuel.