One of the basic amenities I look out for before moving to a new location is stable electricity, why?
Because of my livelihood as a fashion designer and being a hive blogger, I need electricity to power up my devices, also during holidays like the current period, when there is light, my children get more entertained by watching their favorite cartoons, I also get to use less cooking gas, and rather use my electric cooker which further means that my daily expenses are reduced in that aspect but it's no longer a breaking news how we constantly complain about this erratic power supply in my country, and it affects most of the country, my community is not excluded.
Image edited using canva
Although some communities have it fair compared to others, when I newly moved into my current residence, we had that "fair/manageable" power supply, for electricity to be considered fair enough here means that one gets to have at least 12 hours of power supply in a day, you can imagine the torture we face here compared to a more developed country in the same aspect, of course, this is what attracted me to this new residence of mine, thinking I've escaped from my previous community that we only see power supplied once in a long while, and fully depend on power generator, which would always put us at the ruins of debt, only for my hope to be dashed again barely one month after moving, we suffered total blackout for more than two months only for the power holding company to give the excuse that our current bills need to be doubled to improve their epileptic power supply, we had no choice than to submit to their devices, you think it got improved? It never did, we were only received after the first few months after the increase, this proves that they have the ability to supply this power but due to their selfish reasons, they chose to punish the innocent citizens.
So if there is any aspect that needs improving in my town, electricity comes first, without a stable power supply, our daily lives and economic activities are impacted seriously when the lights go out and our devices go dark, we're reminded just how dependent we are on this very important basic amenity which our government fails woefully at providing.
While brief outages are usually an inconvenience, imagine prolonged disruptions in electrical service for as long as two months, businesses are running at a high cost of getting fuel to run their business thereby incurring too many expenses which heavily impacts our income, what about coming back home to rest your head after a stressful day, the heat alone is enough to drive someone insane, especially with the current heat wave, some people like me would shower up to three times in the night just to cool our temp and at least get some good sleep before the next day hustle, how will that even be possible after discomfort of heat, unfortunately, that's the reality my community has been grappling with lately due to what I think is our outdated and overburdened electrical grid.
It's time our government considers modernizing and fortifying our electrical infrastructure and also placing it a top priority, if Ghana our neighboring country can achieve it, I think we can too, even more, but the selfishness of our leaders outweighs the positive side of them that ought to bring the deserving change my community and country at large needs.
So for now, some of us have resulted to other means of providing power for ourselves, you would often find most roofs covered with solar panels which aren't so affordable for everyone even though the sun is free, the rest of us rely on our power banks and generator to stay active with our online activities all which are not so cheap alternatives either.
My power bank for instance which I got around a week ago costs 16HBD for 20,000mAh capacity, while a medium-sized generator costs about 150 HBD, let me not even get started on the current price of fuel since we can't do without electricity, our saving also suffers from this burden we face, one cannot but hope the change we seek becomes a reality soon and the simple instruction from the onset of the world "Let there be light" would be adhered to in Nigeria.
We can't keep allowing our leaders to score political points during their campaign promises with this same topic over and over again, the state of our electrical grid impacts every single resident and business, regardless of affiliation. We need a spirit of cooperation and collaboration across local government, utilities, community groups, business associations, and engaged citizens. It will take all of us advocating in unison to get these leaders to do as promised.
This post is inspired by the #AprilInleo monthly topics, day 25, don't get stuck not knowing what to write about, check out the announcement post and be inspired.
Images 2 and 3 are mine.