 Yonla Electricity Distribution Company has raised an alarm over energy theft. It says over 5,000 consumers of electricity in the state are engaged in the theft, responding to widespread complaints of 150 to 200 percent increment in estimated bills posted to customers for power consumption for December last year. The chief commercial officer, YEDC, Mr Abu Bakr Sadiq, said that the action was not deliberate. He explained that the new management, which recently took over the company, was faced with major issues of gross underbelling and mismatch between energy that flowed into its grid and the collection rate for energy going into the homes of residents. There wasn't increment in electricity tariffs, this is a fact. But what has happened, this is our first month of coming in. We know there's a major issue which has to be resolved. We immediately realized that there was a mismatch between the energy that actually flows through to YOLA Electricity Distribution right down to the customers and actually some of the bills that are actually going on to the customer, Amazon consumers. There are people on the grid who are taking power, who are connected to the grid, who are not recognized as customers. Yes, these issues are for the distribution company, which we have immediately commenced addressing. Some residents had resorted to a protest against the arbitrary increment in their electricity bills. They appealed to the management of the YEDC to review the hike in the bills. 330 naira, but we made 20 naira to balance me. Surprisingly, this month, when they brought this month's bill, in fact, I was shocked to see 25,000, I was shocked to see 25,000 written without even arrears because I did not owe them to talk of having arrears. So 25,000. How did you expect a pensioner to pay this month 25,000 every month? The issue of the exorbitant bill being shared this month, I really discouraged that. I highly discouraged that because a lot of people have been complaining, especially those that don't have meters in their houses. I urge NEPA to consider this a lot because there is already Christ and all that in the state currently. We have issues of insurgency and all that. So adding those kind of hardship on people really cause people to lure them into things that are not supposed to be. So I urge NEPA to look into this and please be considerate.