Residents of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and its environs are crying out over worsening electricity supply, as the atmospheric temperature becomes increasingly intolerable.
The random rains are not helping matters, what momentary relief it brings is overshadowed and stifled by the intense heat that follows after it stops.
And in the midst of this heatwave, electricity supply has become epileptic. Nigeria has a history of poor power supply, starting with National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) to move on to Power Holding Corporation of Nigeria (Power Holding Company of Nigeria) which was then dismantled into separate companies, entities called Local Distribution Companies (LDC). The Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) handles electricity issues in Abuja.
Mrs Elizabeth Ogboji who has a shop in the Lugbe area of Abuja says asides the challenge of having to contend with the unbearable heat at home without electricity for longer times with her family at home, she is making less from her shop as she has had to ice her drinks, fuel her generator among other things for customers to patronise her.
“The electricity situation at Lugbe presently, is pathetic. Before, we used to have electricity supply for up to 18, 20 hours per day, but now it is terrible to the extent that sometimes we don’t have for a whole day,” she complained.
A resident of New Nyanya in Karu LGA of Nasarawa State, Alphonsus Jogor, says previously the complaint was that AEDC was not fulfilling the one day on and another day off rationing plan designed for them. And now that the heatwave has become intense, electricity is restored at midnight for about 3 hours only.
The AEDC’s Head of Media and Public Relations Oyebode Fadipe in a chat with me, notes there has been noticeable difference in supply since March as a result of drop in power generation.
“We even got to a point where generation dropped to as low as below 3,000 mega watts (MW) from about 4,000MW, and that is a significant drop. At such times we may be able to get only about 50 per cent of our Multi-Year Tariff Order (MYTO) allocation of power each day.
“There is no way we can meet up unless generation is able to meet up at that end of the value chain. And you know what is not generated can’t be transmitted, and what is not transmitted can’t get to the distribution point,” he said.
Fadipe who maintained that the problem is not limited to AEDC alone says he had seen posts from at least two other distribution companies (DisCos) on the same issue.
He notes his company circulated a message informing its customers recently of the development, adding that the issue is already in the public domain.