The Southeastern Zone of the Electricity Consumers Association of Nigeria (ECAN) has accused an Aba-based legal practitioner, Larry Iroka, of playing to the gallery in guiding his client, Aba Electricity Consumers Forum, on clear and decided legal matters.

In a statement issued on Monday in Awka, Anambra State, after its monthly executive council meeting, the ECAN zonal leadership said that “it is regrettable that after the Abia State High Court sitting at Isiala Ngwa decided this month a case now regarded by lawyers as a sound precedent in the interpretation of Nigeria’s electricity laws, Iroka has continued to move from one radio house to another making statements that befuddle not just the legal community but also the Nigerian public”.

The statement, signed by the zonal ECAN chairman, Engr Joe Ubani, and the secretary, Comrade Chris Opara, recalled that the Honorable Justice Enyinnaya Ikpeazu had on May 21 agreed with one of the country’s most respected Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs), Chief Mike Ahamba, that state High Courts have no jurisdiction to hear electricity cases based on the provisions of the 2023 Nigerian Electricity Act which state specifically that any person who is not satisfied with any action of the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) should approach the agency for redress and can go to only the Federal High Court after 30 days of filing the petition with NERC and if not satisfied with NERC's decision.

Justice Ikpeazu also ruled that it is wrong for the forum to jump to the Abia State High Court for redress on the 17th day of filing a petition to NERC, instead of exhausting the 30 days provided by the 2023 Electricity Act.

The Aba Electricity Consumers Forum, an unregistered group, had in January taken both NERC and Aba Power Ltd to the Abia State High Court over the NERC order to Aba Power last December 30 to review its tariff from January 1, 2025, to align with the new tariff structures of the country’s other 11 electricity distribution companies that took effect from April 4, 2024.

Justice Ikpeazu had earlier declared the Aba Electricity Consumers unregistered and, therefore, incompetent to appear in his court or any other in the country, but allowed three Aba residents who claim to be its members to proceed with the case in their individual capacities “because they are known human beings”.

Rather than accept that he had not represented his clients effectively, ECAN remarked in the statement, “Mr. Iroka has been engaging in media shows accusing Aba Power of grandstanding whereas he is the person who has been grandstanding, the extreme type.

“He even announced to journalists after one of the court proceedings that Aba Power officials would be charged to court with contempt of court even when he knew that the utility has never engaged in contempt of court, whether within the court or outside the court.

“He never brought up the so-called contempt of court issue before the Honorable Justice Ikpeazu but was in the habit of doing so before journalists in order to earn the applause of his clients who did not know better then but are now wiser”.

ECAN advised Iroka to “stop wasting the time and resources of his three exhausted clients by tabling the NERC order to Aba Power before the Federal High Court, as he has been threatening to do in radio interviews.

“He is no match for Chief Ahamba, SAN, whom he has told the world he has been admiring right from the time he was a law student at the University of Calabar and Chief Ahamba, already an influential SAN and author, used to come around to deliver penetrating lectures on legal and current national issues, and often gave the students money, in addition”.

The electricity consumers association wondered why Aba Power, Nigeria’s newest electricity distribution company which has never received subsidies from any government, should be sued for obeying the NERC directive when the other 11 DisCos, which have been paid billions of naira in subsidies by the Federal Government, complied with the order nine months earlier, “are not distracted by any frivolous court action.

“If Iroka and his group had come from another geopolitical zone, their action would have been interpreted as part of the Southeast marginalization”.