You know how I said getting a national ID is top 1000 ways to pass out in Nigeria in this post? Well, sleeping or attempting to sleep is top 1000 ways to actually die no jokes.
"A family of seven made up of the father, the mother and five children were discovered dead this morning. They were suffocated to death by fumes from a generator," state police spokesperson Nnamdi Omoni said in Port Harcourt, the state capital" source
"The Niger State Police Command on Saturday confirmed the death of seven females from generator fumes at Rijau town, in Rijau Local Government Area of the state" source
Literally every building on my street has at least one generator set running during the day or at night and it's same for a majority of buildings across the country. Commercially, most businesses can't do without electricity so they have to run the generator sets almost throughout work hours. In homes, you have to keep your food refrigerated, power appliances and just get your fans or air conditioners working because we're in the tropic zone. No electricity + heat? Classic Nigerian induced homicide.
Retail of generator sets and petroleum are booming businesses because we really have no choice than to get electricity one way or another. The dangers of using petrol powered generator sets have been disregarded almost entirely. Come to Nigeria and you find people casually strolling with gallons of petrol, you'd think this volatile substance was water.
The regular programming of most homes is to put on the generator set by 7pm and switch off by 10 or 11pm. That's usually when our parents watch the news, family watches trending soap operas or reality shows and everyone charges their mobile phones. Some people however go overboard and leave the generators up until midnight, the worse set of people leave theirs on all through the night. Now I think these set of people are straight up wicked because first they subject everyone else around them to the terrible, horrible loud noise from the generator; and they put people's lives at risk from the carbon monoxide emitted from the generator.
Some people are foolish enough to have their generators inside the same house they sleep in and end up dying from the smoke fumes as a result. Others who have theirs outside their houses and lock themselves in to prevent the fumes and noise from reaching them put their neighbor's at risk.
Every night I find it so hard to sleep because I happen to live next to such unfortunate neighbors. My room is just on the same side of the fence as these guys in the next building. These guys run the generator during the day sometimes and don't miss the standard 7pm Nigerian generator time. It's on until 2am and sometimes all through the night. The generator sometimes runs out of petrol during the night and these fuckers refuel it and start it again until morning. I can't shut my window because it's just one window in my room and that would mean dying in heat. I haven't died of carbon monoxide poisoning because the fumes get diffused in the air before it can get to my window, hopefully it stays that way.
We've complained several times but the fuckers don't care. We complained to a higher authority but like I always say, shitty individuals make a shitty nation, nothing was done. I have to deal with constant headaches and sleeplessness. Some people have it worse, dying in their sleep as a result of someone else's foolishness. I don't want to die yet, there are better ways to die than an imposed dying in my sleep.