KWALE, Nigeria — Hundreds of residents from the Ndokwa area of Delta State on Monday, June 16, 2025, staged a large-scale protest over the region’s prolonged power outage, blocking the Kwale section of the Ughelli-Asaba expressway and bringing traffic to a standstill for several hours.
Chanting protest songs and wielding placards bearing messages such as “Light Up Ndokwa Nation”, “Electricity in Ndokwa Land: Enough is Enough”, and “NEPA No, IPP Yes”, the demonstrators — including youths, women, and elderly residents — called for urgent government intervention to end more than 16 years of electricity deprivation in their communities.
The protest focused attention on the Okpai Independent Power Plant (IPP), located within the Ndokwa region, which has been supplying electricity to multiple states while its host communities remain largely without power.
“It is painful that we have something that can generate electricity for us, but we are suffering,” said Mr Enubuzor, one of the protesters.
“Our people are tired of buying fuel to power our generators. At night, we cannot sleep because of the heat, while gas flares light up our skies.”
“What we are saying is that the leaders should give electricity to Ndokwa. Let them light up Ndokwa so that we can benefit from the IPP,” he added.
The protest, which began peacefully in the early hours of the morning, was disrupted by police officers who fired teargas around 9 a.m. to disperse the crowd. However, demonstrators regrouped and resumed the protest shortly after.
State Police Public Relations Officer, SP Bright Edafe, defended the police action, saying the protest had turned violent.
“Any protest that people will go and block the highway and burn tires is no longer peaceful. They were burning tires and stoning vehicles,” he said.
The demonstration triggered widespread gridlock, stranding travellers and commercial vehicles for several hours on the busy expressway.
In response, the apex social and cultural group of the Ndokwa people, the Ndokwa Neku Union (NNU), distanced itself from the protest’s timing but acknowledged the legitimacy of the grievances.
“We are not against the protest, but it is the timing that we are against,” said Mr Azuka Odainike, Publicity Secretary of the NNU.
“We had already set up a standing committee on Sunday to push for the step-down of power from the IPP, and the government is already responding.”
He added that the NNU intended to engage directly with the protesters and would work to fast-track the power supply to the Ndokwa region.
The Okpai Power Plant, commissioned in 2005, has long been a source of contention in Ndokwa land.
Though it feeds electricity into the national grid, many host communities remain unconnected to its output — a situation residents say reflects deep infrastructural neglect and injustice.
