As the national grid collapsed the second time within three days, business owners and residents have expressed their dissatisfaction over the persistent power crisis across the country, describing it as the major force behind the country’s poor economy.
The residents and business owners said that the epileptic power supply has further increased their expenses and left them with a huge debt burden incurred from sourcing for an alternative power supply.
They said that despite continuous increases in electricity tariffs, the standard of power supplies has been at variance with the tariff paid to the distribution companies.
The residents and entrepreneurs expressed their concern on Thursday after the nation recorded its fifth national grid collapse within six weeks.
This development has crippled operations, disrupted supply chains, and threatened the viability of struggling enterprises.
They expressed their concern on the epileptic power system through interviews and on their various social media handles narrating how the persistent national grid collapse has affected their business and lifestyle.
Expressing their view on the nationwide power outage, a petty trader who needs electricity to power her refrigerators to chill her products lamented over warm drinks and lost sales.
Similarly, a barber who relies on electricity for their livelihood has seen his business grind to a halt.
“The outage is killing my business. My cold drinks are warming up and I’m losing customers. To make matters worse, I don’t have money to buy fuel for my generator” a drink seller lamented.
“This outage is a disaster for my business. No power means no clipper, no shaver, no nothing, I have turned away customers all day,” a barber said.
Also reacting to the reoccurring power supply outage, an agitated resident faulted the Federal Government for appointing an inexperienced hand to manage the country’s power supply, while asserting that the regular power supply to band A customers is the cause for the blackout.
Another blamed the frequent grid collapse on Nigeria’s aging infrastructure, inadequate maintenance, and lack of investment.
‘It seems the grid can no longer function properly without breaking down despite spending billions to upgrade and maintain it. The power minister should be fired” he said.
“It is becoming very obvious that the regular supplies of power ton band A customers is the reason for this epileptic power outage because the unnecessary infrastructure capacity to sustain the supply is lacking” another added.
They expressed these views after the discords on review of the power outage across the country.
One of the discords, Ikeja Electric while informing its customers appealed that the interruption in service was beyond its capacity.
In its statement, it disclosed that the system outage occurred around 11:29 AM saying, prompt restoration had commenced.
It said, “Please be informed that we experienced a system outage today 07 Nov 2024 at 11:29 hrs affecting supply with our network. Restoration of supply is ongoing in collaboration with our critical stakeholders,”.
