NO LIGHT, NO FUEL, NO BREEZE, NO SLEEP, NO WORK, NO MONEY! OH LORD HAVE MERCY!!

When Toni Braxton did the song “the heat” never did it occur to me that many years after, I would be thinking this way about it as every second of the day lately, nearly every statement I make has the word ‘heat’ in it. 

I would be having a conversation with someone whether on the phone or otherwise, the next thing that would slip out of my mouth after a few seconds would be such as “mehnn! This heat will finish someone” and the replies are nearly always the same as the person would concur “you can say that again” or “that’s no longer news”.

I had the longest night (in my life so far) yesterday as I spent more than half of the night trying to sleep but did a very bad job at it because I kept waking up after a few seconds of drifting off no thanks to NEPA, PHCN or is it IKDEC or whatever the new names are. Gosh! The heat was unbearable and after the generator set was turned off at midnight; it was ‘welcome to hell’ as the heat became a lot more intense.

While I was doing the job of tossing and turning all through the night, I cussed and swore at the several Discos in charge of light distribution in the country and the failing government who obviously have no inkling what next to do about the light/electricity issue which is no longer epileptic but now looks completely dead and just waiting to be buried.

Pardon me if you find any errors in this particular write-up as I’m practically half asleep and half-awake in the course of this piece. I’m in the office and trying to do some work, but you know, like the popular saying “you cannot cheat nature” the lost hours of sleep is trying to force me into fulfilling the required amount of sleep for a balanced active day-life and this is affecting manpower at work.

Away from me, I’m sure many others are on the same turf with me on this today, dozing off and on as well as cranky having had the same night experiences as I have had; and this on the long run would no doubts impact negatively on the micro/macro economy of our dear country Nigeria.

With fuel grossly unavailable and being sold at outrageous prices, it’s getting more difficult for even the rich who now also cry to run their gen sets for too long, not to talk of the average Nigerian let alone the masses who can at this point in time barely afford to have their daily meals.

Interestingly, even when you have the inverters, one still requires certain amount of steady supply of light to get it fully charged for the night and even at that “how long would the inverter last” especially in a family where every room has at least a fan.

Looking at it from another angle, it bothers me to think that even the environment is now so upset that the windows one normally enjoys a huge amount of fresh/cool breeze all through the night is now on a steady stand-still.

So, on behalf of teeming Nigerians, especially those who are not giving their best at work given the ‘lost hours of sleep’, I hereby make this clarion call to all those in charge of electricity and the government at large that the electricity system be brought back to life as not many people can afford the alternatives of inverters, solar et al.

It’s now a case of no light, no fuel, no breeze, no sleep, no work and no money! Oh Lord!! Have mercy and save our soul!!!