Electricity theft: Court grants N100,000 bail to 2 men

A Bwari Chief Magistrates’ Court, Abuja, yesterday, admitted a 31-year old business man, Anya Ifeanyi and Emmanuel Idoko, 32, to bail in the sum of N100,000, for alleged electricity theft.
In her ruling after their arraignment, the Chief Magistrate, Mrs Akanni Idayat-Olaide, ordered the defendants to produce a reliable surety each, in like sum.
Idayat-Olaide adjourned the case till July 26 for hearing.
The defendants, both residents of Bwari, were arraigned by the Police on a two-count-charge of joint act and theft.
They, however, pleaded not guilty after the charges were read out to them.
According to the prosecutor, the matter was reported at the Bwari Divisional Police Station by a staff of the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC),Micheal Okon, on July 10 at 6p.m.
It was alleged in the charge sheet that the defendants conspired and bypassed the AEDC prepaid metre which Ifeanyi, was illegally using in his office located opposite Bwari market.
Both defendants, it stated, had reason to believe that by so doing, they have caused wrongful loss to AEDC and caused wrongful gain to themselves.
The charge added that during investigation, Ifeanyi confessed to the crime, an offence which contravened Section 79 and 286 of the Penal Code.
The Prosecutor, Mrs Agnes Adewunmi-Aluko, Senior State Counsel, however,asked the court to adjourn the matter in order to begin trial against both suspects.
Also, the defence counsel, Mr S.
Emmanuel, who did not object to the application by the prosecution, also applied to the court to admit the defendants to bail according to sections 158,162,163 and 165 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act.
He added that though admitting the suspects to bail was at the discretion of the court, he stated that credible sureties will ensure that both defendants make themselves available from beginning to the end of the trial ‘100m Nigerians are living off national grid’

A total of 100 million Nigerians are living off the national grid, a private renewable energy company, Smarter Grid International, has claimed.
The Managing Director of the company, Mrs Heather Onoh, who spoke in an interview recently, also claimed that globally, over 1.2 billion people are in the same condition.
She, however, disclosed that her company has created solar power devices for businesses and homes in order to ensure constant power supply.
Onoh said: “This solution came about just by understanding the problems of energy supply in Nigeria.
Many people are energy starved and energy poor.
“Globally, over 1.2 billion people are living below energy poverty.
In Nigeria alone, about 100 million are living off the grid or on the grid but getting intermittent energy supply and so are energy poor.
So, we decided to solve this problem because the problem is solvable.
“So, we created solar powered devices for businesses and homes.
We have a variety of products.
We just debuted our solar powered kiosk for barbing.
But we do more than barbing in the kiosk, we sell recharge cards, charge peoples phones because we have charging station powered by solar.
“No generator noise, everything is renewable energy and the reason for this is job creation – you know the unemployment rate and the energy poverty in this nation.
“This is our own contribution to combating this.
This is not rocket science – it is good to know that these things can be manufactured in Nigeria.
This is a renewable solar-powered kiosk that will enable people to have multiple streams of income and be empowered”.

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