Power Outages: A Nigerian's Story

When power is out, there are a lot of things that come to hold at that moment. It could be what you are doing in the kitchen or any other particular activity you are doing or probably plan on doing next.

The world has advanced so much that everything we need in our daily lives requires power, i.e., electricity to run them. In fact, there are now electric vehicles. Everywhere we hear of Tesla electric vehicles, and even just yesterday, I was seeing some electric bicycles for sale.

The whole point here is this: our world is all power-based, and there is nothing much left in our lives when the power is taken away from us. Imagine how the world would generally be affected if there were a worldwide power outage lasting only 5 minutes. I mean a power outage that would affect everything, including aeroplanes. There would be a serious problem; in fact, a lot of deaths would be recorded, and hospitals would also be affected by this.

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As someone who lives in Nigeria, there is no way I would have not experienced numerous power outages. This is a constant challenge we face in this country, and the funniest thing is that Nigeria supplies constant electricity to 3 to 4 neighbouring countries and yet doesn't give its citizens constant electricity.

I have had several power outages, and it is quite difficult to select which one is the worst ever, but there is one that comes to mind when I think about it, and it was the reason why I chose to get a generator.

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MY STORY

I remember about two years ago, while in my school, my estate had issues with the power, and this continued for days and days began to turn into weeks. When there is no power, it would be difficult to pump water into the house.

The hostel didn't have a well, and the only way to get water was to go out to another compound to fetch water from their well, which sometimes was dirty, or to another hostel that had a generator to pump water.

One of the basic needs of man is water, and when there is no water, it is very difficult for a man to survive. So we had to keep going out to fetch water for our drums. This activity was very tiring and one of the things I hate most in my life.

I felt this could not continue and made the decision to power down enough money to get myself a generator that would be used for pumping water. This would not just help me, but everyone else staying in the hostel.

My estate had a power outage for about a year before the community came together to work towards solving the problem. I thank God for Hive for being able to get that generator, or if not, that was how I would have been stressing myself for over a year.

This is one of the worst power outages that I have ever experienced. What is yours?