*Appeals to Nigerians to exercise patience

By Chioma Onuegbu, Uyo

THE Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, has expressed its commitment to complete the ongoing reconstruction of vandalized No.104 Transmission Tower along 330KV Odukpani-Ikot Ekpene transmission line soon.

Speaking yesterday at Oku Iboku in Itu local government area, of Akwa Ibom State where the Tower is situated, the Executive Director of Transmission Service Provider, TCN, Engr. Victor Adewumi, assured that the completion would not take more than one week.

Adewumi explained that they were in the state to assess the progress of work and appealed to affected areas especially Cross River and Akwa Ibom states to exercise patience with them as they didn’t know the repairs would take longer to complete.

His words: “There were some challenges. For instance we didn’t envisage that the integrity of the foundation was compromised so we had to start from the scratch. It takes time to work on the foundation.

“And we thought cranes will do the job ,to lift up the conductor, unfortunately the boom couldn’t reach the top of the grid. So we went to the normal way of lowering the wire to the tension tower. So we are here to see the progress of work.

“We’re appealing to the people of Cross River and Akwa Ibom states to exercise patience, we’re doing everything within our power to make sure that the Tower is completed soon. The contractor is complaining that they’re putting pressure on him.

“Of course, there is blackout in the whole of Calabar. Everybody is waiting for the grid to come back to normal. But we want to tell the whole world that we are not sleeping”

Adewumi also revealed that because the weight of the Tower which is on top of the hill is much, they have to be very careful so that they don’t create more problems.

He however appealed to the general public again to always take ownership of physical infrastructure sited within their domains, by protecting them from vandals.

In the same vein, the Port-Harcourt Regional Transmission Manager, Engr. Daniel Udofia, explained that there were so many challenges that delayed the completion of the vandalized tower.

“There were so many challenges that we faced when we started the work. If you look beyond here, you will see a Swamp and beyond the swamp, there is River.

“While we were trying to shift the Conductors , we took all these things into consideration so that the Conductor does not slip back to the swamp or the river. If this Tower were to be in tact we won’t be here. So any where we have this kind of Infrastructure, let us Protect it”, Udofia said.