By Michael. G
Nights amongst many things, carry much weight here, when the lights go out. Limp power lines, hanging like threads and blackouts many hours long, burdens our homes and peace. After 12 hours of daylight, heaves and sighs of weary people set in, because the night cometh.
This change in mood and demeanor, is the lovechild of our union, with the national power grid. More than 85% of Nigerians, are plugged into this network of continuous heartache and failed promises.
When evening comes and begins growing dimmer, the thickest shades crowd into nooks and crannies, into bends and crevice, of different streets. This mounting darkness brings desperation close, present, and immediate, for all age groups, borne out of a resolve to claw out of this reality. Plodding through, storekeepers hurry to call it a day, pedestrians hasten their steps, pace after pace. Children heed the siren calls, and rallying cries of mothers, frightful of the odds in a shadow world.
To see out this phase, wailing rounds of electric power generators, rent the dark air at all quarters as much as possible. Echoes that drum deep, into the bowels of homes and neighborhoods, leaving everyone with a shaky focus. Thanks to this pattern of our living conditions, a carefree tolerance for loud decibels has settled in, very well amongst us. Endless honking, blaring speakers in public spaces, and sound systems, tuned to a high pitch, are a few honourable mentions. The noise honestly we can live with, but the constant power cuts?
A usual occurrence that leaves whole districts and urban centers, blind like a mole kingdom?
Or that results in inadequate lighting, with pinches of brightness swarmed about by inky blackness?
Such questions and lists, go on and on, unanswered, in a place where the lights have failed again and again. Emerging out of this hide and seek game of darkness, is a familiar twist we all know too well in this nation. That people should try and spend their way out of all government failings, darkness included. Power outage, like the many other niggling issues we face, has sadly become a class totem. Just get rich enough, and you won’t notice or feel lights out, the popular advice goes.
At the dawn of the 21st century, it seems many Nigerians had indeed taken this advice, because the middle class did grow larger. This all happened within the last 20 odd years, and has been driven by Internet access, service jobs, and private enterprise, let loose in a of flood government assets sold off to private interests.
With the prosperity, the population has almost doubled through the years, becoming a strain on the national power grid as a result. Power output, has barely met the new age demands of Internet use, and gadget loving younger generations. In other words, the 21st century caught us pants down, and wholly unprepared for the headwinds of human advancement.
To be fair, the last 27 years has been the most stable in our national life, even though imperfect. And indeed, this nation of ours, inherited many imperfections from the civil war and coup epochs. Old scars we talk about now and again, albeit still healing.
While we have forged on from military despotism, to some form of democratic rule, our struggle to keep Lightbulbs unblinking has remained with us. 26 plus years, of recurrent blackouts, has left a nation of almost 200 million residents, reeling from an industrial paralysis though people and resources be in mammoth supply.
Buoyed by the Asian scramble for the African market, private citizens have acquired alternate means of electric power generation en masse. The numbers are staggering to say the least. This ample purchasing power, has meant more bellowing or silent machines imported per annum.
The alternate power generation industry has grown in leaps and bounds. Yearly imports, run into the billions. All the while, reinforcing and encouraging the bad behavior of a national grid, that inflicts darkness on millions. Here and elsewhere, we know it’s not news for those gifted with a sleight of hand, to create a problem and sell the solution. It’s just good business, cut-throat industrialists would tell you.
Many a light loving Nigerian, has had their mettle tested by this system of pain for profit. Amidst the noisy reign of these imported machines, fuel hikes, a growing trove of appliances, and quack technicians, have made sure of this, even after money well spent. For this reason, after some resistance to the nightly blackness, many surrender and switch off their generators, somewhere into the early a.m.
Within these few hours before dawn, a still peace sets in, for once in the dark air. The occasional hoots and caws of birds of prey, cuts in on rare nights, and settles on neighborhoods, while the metallic grunts of toiling engines, begin fading like distant memories.
