What an Awful Amount of Pollution!

I have worked all day in the office.  We ran on a  petrol-fueled generator all eight hours we were at work.  It was one of those days  when the power- generating  company  here  - Power Holding Company of Nigeria  (PHCN)  - was unable to supply even one hour of power during the workday.  There is a popular joke here that the company  is ‘holding’ onto the power and that is why it is unable to distribute power efficiently.   I think one of the most ridiculous sights ever,  was when I visited the office of the electric company  to file a complaint; only  to find that even the Power Holding Company of Nigeria is using a generator to run its  daily  affairs!

 So all the firms  in my office block had to run their  individual generators all day.  Multiply this with the millions of businesses in the country, small, medium and large, and you  can imagine that we have an awful amount of  fossil-fuel run generators all spewing their deadly gas endlessly.  I was told that some of the big  industries simply depend on  their generators twenty-four hours a day because their production processes are very  sensitive and cannot be interrupted by unpredictable power outages. 

Over here, we are so used to the  generator noise that you can almost guess correctly when PHCN does supply power – maybe for a few minutes, an hour or  maybe for longer.  Suddenly, the generators start going  off, one after the other. An eerie and unusual calm  settles over the land.   On a good day when the power  comes  on for a few hours,  in my  subconscious, I dread so totally the thought that the power supply will most certainly go off suddenly and without warning;   I jump inwardly if someone suddenly switches off the light  in the room; I imagine that  the inevitable  has happened.

So, having  been without electricity supply all day at work; I dread what would happen at night. I need to cook dinner and to do some work; do some reading.  My heart sinks.  My daughter probably has homework from school too.  Do I have any  petrol left after last night’s use? I may have to run my mini generator at home  all night too.  What an awful amount of pollution!  So I am dreading the thought of  a noisy night abuzz with generator  noises  of different  levels – the newer ones are kinder emitting a steady purring sound. But not so the old, overused and dying generators – they emit such an unkind guttural sound – like any overtired and overused engine.

Does anyone care? Have policy makers concerned tried to compute the damage to the environment  that our generator –run economy is causing? What of the danger to our health and the several fire accidents and deaths  that these have caused?  Sometimes, whole families are wiped out. Who cares, really?  On some evenings when I visit the local gas station to buy my own supply of petrol, I  am always amazed at the sight of long queues of people – men, women and even children,  all carrying different  sizes of jerry cans  and bottles, getting ready for the long night with no electricity.

I glance at my watch. I am getting a bit fidgety. My colleagues  have left already. I was busy preparing  a presentation for the next  day for a meeting with a prospective client. It’s getting quite late. I decide to shut down and go home.  After I switch the generator off, its pitch dark and I  need to use the light from my mobile phone to lock up and descend  the winding staircase…. All around me I am engulfed by generator sounds as I proceed to my parked car.

As I round the bend to my  home, my heart sinks! The noise is there all around me… like  a national emblem. I  wonder, soon the politicians seeking  elective offices will get on the campaign trail again promising uninterrupted and steady power and water supply, good transportation system, good roads, free education – the very same promises they have made since Nigeria’s Independence in  1960.

I think to myself, it is such a shame that with all the sunlight we have, we are still dependent  on petrol or  diesel - fueled  generators.  A larger percentage of the population still depends on kerosene or firewood as fuel gas; whatever happened  to the new emerging solar powered stoves and lanterns?  Why are they not available or accessible to the Nigerian populations?  Why have various governments over the years failed totally to solve Nigeria’s gnawing power problem? Why?

Sadly, the few  solar-powered flashlights and lanterns   seeping into the market are of such poor quality that those who buy them find they hardly last more than a few  days or weeks.  Many of these are locally fabricated  or poor quality imports from the  lower end of the Asian markets. Nigeria is a dumping ground for a lot of garbage. The poor  and already over-stretched have become skeptical about solar technologies because their experience of  using these gadgets has not been pleasant at all.

Unknowingly, a deep sigh escapes from deep inside me. As I let myself in, I find my daughter bent over her homework, the lantern that is providing some illumination,  casts a huge giant  shadow of her across half of the sitting room wall. The huge shadow really bears no resemblance to her  real form bent over her books.  

I turn on my battery run radio to catch the evening news : “Fellow Nigerians, I am here to bring change;   vote me as your presidential candidate and let us bid farewell to power failure…”   My daughter looks at me,  a cynical smile  cast on her young pretty  face as she lets out  a chuckle that says it all, “Liar, liar”.