Uninterrupted Power Supply to Reduce Lockdown Effect

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Over the Years, I’ve often extricated and appreciated Nikola Tesla, Benjamin Franklin, Micheal Faraday, Thomas Edison, etc and their teams for the invention of Electricity because of its benefits and worthwhile service it has brought to mankind especially in this our Age. Most times this thought prompts me to wonder how those residing in remote areas survive without Electricity. Eventually electricity has become one of the necessities of our time, with benefits which include providing lights for our rooms, working fans and other domestic appliances including electric stove, Air Conditioners,  Cell Phones, etc.

With the Lockdown System serving as one of the best method adopted internationally to curb the spread of corona virus, President Muhammadu Buhari in his televised address on Monday extended the lockdown especially in major cities like Lagos, Abuja and Kano. Personally, I remain grateful to the Federal Government for this preventive measure against the corona virus but also feel that this method might not work properly among especially the poor masses which is a greater part of the Nigeria Population if the basic social amenities needed to reduce the effect of the Lockdown is not provided. One of the basic amenity which you will agree with me, that is essential to ease the effect of the lockdown is Uninterrupted Power Supply.

The failure of the Nigerian Power sector to provide Adequate Power Supply to households especially now, has been one the major Problem, despite the rapid growth of the Country’s Economy and status as Africa’s largest Oil producer. Statistics have shown that just 40% of Nigerian population is connected to the Energy grid whilst power supply difficulties are experienced most of the time. Furthermore several days can go by without any power supply with not even restorations announced. Cognizantly, the House of Representative and Stake holders in the power Sector agreed to set up a committee to propose free electricity as part of the stimulus package to reduce the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on some Nigerians, but the great question is, How beneficial is this package with the Epileptic Power supply?

Except for those residing in Omoku and other places with Uninterrupted Power Supply, Electricity has been one of the major challenge in the southern and western part of Nigeria I visited and still remains an outstanding  problem with Lockdown System. A typical lockdown implies staying in a particular geographical area with no or limited movement, to be precise Staying Indoors. And Staying Indoors leaves you with limited choices which might include sleeping, watching TV, using your smart devices, working online, exercising, and a few more which depends on the size of your house or land mass. You’ll observe that all the above mentioned is in a way connected with the use of electricity, you might be asking yourself how does exercise connect with electricity. Funny enough you’ll need electricity to power your exercising machine and if you don’t use that, you’ll need water to bath after the exercise, and that water has to be pumped using electricity. Most importantly, we need to preserve the food we’ve made despite the high cost of buying food items due to the pandemic, an electric-powered refrigerator is need to achieve this goal. Some of our family and friends are far from their loved ones are finding it difficult to stay in touch due to epileptic power supply.

The residents of Omoku and other regions with reliable Power Supply can attest to how easy it is to cope with the Lockdown System compared to other regions with epileptic power supply. Sadly this is the little I can do and i hope that the Power Sector will look into this to enable a proper functioning of the Lockdown system in most regions, with the aim to return to the normalities of Life.