Many households and businesses across the country have been reeling from the effect of worsening electricity supply as a relentless heatwave intensifies hardship.
Findings by Saturday PUNCH show that residents of Kano, Kaduna, Sokoto, Enugu, Benue, Oyo, Akwa-Ibom, Taraba, Lagos and Ogun states have been grappling with prolonged blackouts in weeks, forcing many people to abandon reliance on public electricity and turn to generators and solar power.
Residents, who spoke to our correspondents, said the situation made it nearly impossible for them to carry out normal activities during the day.
Energy analysts warn that the worsening outages highlight deeper structural failures within the electricity sector, including gas supply shortages to power plants, weak transmission infrastructure and chronic underinvestment across the power value chain.
In Oyo State, residents across several communities in the Ibadan metropolis said the worsening electricity supply had crippled economic activities.
A Saturday PUNCH visit to Moniya, Ojoo and Orogun communities in Akinyele Local Government Area, as well as Mokola, Sango and Oke-Itunu in Ibadan North Local Government Area, revealed widespread reliance on generators.
A resident, Kunle Ajala, said businesses struggled to survive due to erratic electricity supply.
“It has been almost a week since we had stable electricity here. Even when power comes, it may not last up to three hours,” he said.
Another resident who is a barber, Bisi Adeoye, said unreliable electricity had severely affected his business and livelihood.
“I depend on electricity for my business, which has not been moving well for some time now but despite the poor supply the electricity company still sends high bills,” he said.
Another resident who is a barber, Bisi Adeoye, said unreliable electricity had severely affected his business and livelihood.
“I depend on electricity for my business, which has not been moving well for some time now but despite the poor supply the electricity company still sends high bills,” he said.
A welder, Musbau Muritala, said many artisans in the area had been forced to suspend work and resort to riding commercial motorcycles to make ends meet.
“I cannot do anything without electricity. Sometimes power comes around midnight and disappears before morning,” he said.
Residents waste food, Tweep mocks minister
Saturday PUNCH gathered that some residents who stored food in their freezers poured it away due to the prolonged power outage.
A resident in the Obafemi Owode LGA of Ogun State, who asked not to be identified, said food worth about N100,000 which he stored in his freezer turned bad.
“I had to pour everything away because there was no power for three days. It was painful, but I had no option. And I am not alone. There are many people like me. Who will compensate us for this?” he queried.
Saturday PUNCH observes that social media is awash with content created by Nigerians to express frustration over the poor power supply.
On Twitter, a user shared an Artificial Intelligence-generated image of the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, mockingly crowned the Olokunkun of Okunkun Kingdom (the king of darkness kingdom).
Other posts include a picture of a battered Nigerian captioned as an official of a distribution company handing out bills to customers amid the blackout, and an image of a man hugging a transformer to depict the erratic power supply.
