Electricity issues is one of many problems different communities in Nigeria struggle with and this part of the country where I live has always struggled with electricity issue since we move there. To be fair, I live in a very remote part of Ijebu but that doesn't mean we shouldn't enjoy electricity because the last time I was in Lagos to visit a friend, they barely blinked their electricity despite the place being a small community in a remote area.
You can say Lagos is different from Ogun state but we should remember that we all have the right to social amenities and electricity is one of things we should be enjoying.
It's been over 15 years since we relocated to our apartment, and there was no electricity in that area at that time. My dad and a few landlords started pushing for the connection, and it took almost five years to succeed on that since it required a lot of money and connection. With the local government support and an investor who ended up building a waste processing factory there, they made it happen.
We enjoyed steady electricity for a while, and suddenly, things changed. At first it was some faulty parts in the transformer, and landlords kept fixing it until the transformer finally broke down beyond what electricians could fix. It wasn't their job in the first place, but we had to depend on them because the electricity company always takes forever to show up when we need them, but when they want to disconnect people's electricity for not paying their bills, they are very quick.
It took months before they helped us fix the transformer, but we never enjoyed electricity anymore, and as more people moved in, the supply reduced. It even got to the point where we started having days off, whereas there isn't much difference between off and on days.
Luckily for me and many people around there, my dad business requires the use of electricity so he use generator a lot time. We get to charge our phones, rechargeable lamp, powerbanks and other rechargeable gadgets that can serve us when power is out because we can't tell what the electricity company would do.
A lot of times whenever I travel, I usually feel reluctant to go home because, unlike my place, there are several parts of Ogun State that use steady electricity. It's the same thing in the part of Lagos where I have visited; they use electricity like I can't describe, and it still baffles me why this thing called electricity can't be shared equally among states and communities.
I don't know how it works, so I will just keep my rant about this electricity issue short. Right now, I am in good hands because my residence here, where I am serving, enjoys electricity. There are days when we don't see it at all, but it is better than what we have at my dad's place.
Whether electricity is fine or not, I go about with my rechargeable fan and power bank because even if electricity is fine where you are, the national power grid can decide to go on holiday, throwing the entire country into darkness.
