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!!!
