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Imagine a life that is less disruptive in
Nigeria
. While electricity supply is not 24/7, but due to some ingenuity of PHCN, people living in Nigeria get to know in advance when electricity supply, to an area, will be brought back and taken. Sustained 24/7 supply of public electricity is everybody’s prayer. That prayer will definitely be answered someday in
Nigeria
- isha-Allah. It may not be in the lifetime of most of us. However, those that could miss out have another prayer: is it possible to enjoy a little bit of heaven while still alive in
Nigeria
?
What does it take to have advanced warning of when to expect one’s share of electricity on a daily basis and when to expect blackouts? From the time God commanded light to be, there has been a definite clockwork pattern of light. Though the sun is not 24/7, people have come to live with that. We all know when to expect daylight and night in a given season. Imagine the disruption to people’s lives were the sun to rise and set whimsically: say it rises at 2.00am today, tomorrow at 8.00pm and the next day at noon. Same goes for the sunset; were it to set erratically from day to day.
Not too long ago, I had a misfortune to spend a considerable time at the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) headquarters at Alausa, Ikeja, in
Lagos
State
. It was a Monday, I remember, and I was there to report an electrical fire accident. I had had an unfortunate incident in my house on the Saturday-night preceding the said Monday. That Saturday at 9.23pm, we experienced what we thought was the usual light-out, but it was not. Some electrical points in the house were still powered, so I thought we had lost one of the three phases. Besides, the TV in the parlour was still working, but it was covered in smoke; possibly coming from the inside of the TV.
My wife had dozed off on a recliner in the parlour watching the TV. Unbeknownst to everybody in the house, she was already being poisoned by carbon monoxide from the electrical appliances bellowing smoke. I was in a separate room, working on the computer, when the incident happened and only came out to investigate because the air- conditioner where I was shook violently. I rushed outside and moved the changeover switch to neutral to cut off the public supply. My neighbours on both sides of us were already on generators – I could hear their sounds. I was about to switch on ours, when our newly installed prepaid electric meter exploded into a ball of flames. I was lucky to have been at some distance from the meter.
I did not need to raise any alarm; the ferocity of the inferno was enough. Neighbours forced their way into my compound with fire extinguisher bottles. These were good neighbours. A call to the Fire Brigade was useless and to PHCN was frustrating. Eventually, we got somebody in PHCN to switch off the power to the whole area and it was after that we could contain the fire. Sadly, whilst the people in the area were battling to put off the fire in my house, they, one after the other, lost their own prepaid meters; but theirs did not burst into flames. It took the PHCN men, led by a night-duty engineer, 3 hours to answer the call and even then they could not figure out what had happened. I was asked to go to the headquarters on Monday to make an official report. My house was saved, thank God, but the stench of burning - coupled with the residue powder from the fire extinguishing made the house uninhabitable. It was too late to drive out for alternative accommodation, so the family camped outside in the yard. In the morning, we on our own figured out what was responsible for the near miss.
The distribution line to private houses, usually made up of four vertically arranged electric cables, is called “eleven” by PHCN for whatever reason. The first three, starting from the top, are live wires, while the last or bottom cable is the neutral. On that Saturday, the third live wire into my estate snapped and dropped on the neutral cable: it fused to it, sending over a thousand-voltage to the houses through the neutral line that ought to carry zero voltage. That was why the electrical appliances oozed out smoke. Unwittingly, those who changed over to generators had isolated the inside of their houses from the faulty public utility supply line. I had done the same by switching my changeover to neutral. When the next wave of high voltage came through to the meters, there was nowhere to go.
You could imagine trying to battle several electrical fires at the same time inside the houses. Anyway, the high voltage stopped at the plastic prepaid meters and mine exploded. Mine was the closest to the faulty electric pole. The inefficiency of NEPA or PHCN turned out to be a blessing; at least most people now have changeover switches to isolate the public utility from such incidents. In the past, there were adequate protections installed, through Cut-outs upstream of the meters. PHCN reasons that supply could be looped across the meters from the Cut-outs to avoid paying for electricity used. For that, we could all roast in hell.
On the Monday following that incident, I was their first customer. Whilst there, light came and went 6 times – even “NEPA” was not immune? Various PHCN managers moved about the corridors with walkie-talkies. Crackled sounds, emanating from the walkie-talkies, rented the air. It was a façade – you would think they were on top of the situation. I tried so hard to be patient. After a while, I approached an affable junior PHCN engineer and asked questions. Does anybody really know what was going on? Nobody seemed to know the cause or causes of the various power network breakdowns.
I thought they, at least, should know the amount of power generated every second and with the knowledge of consumption pattern, they could distribute according to whatever formula. Telling us everyday that we do not generate enough electricity is becoming boring. People can live with that - after all the sun is not available to us for 24 hours, but we know when to expect it. If power is being rationed, why can’t they tell me when to expect my share and for how long? As it is, it’s Russian roulette. It shows it’s a runaway situation. I suspect yet again, like every facet of our life, the management of
Nigeria
’s electricity is in the hands of charlatans. This time, it is electrical engineers that have no clue.
The salient point, in my mind, is not that there is not enough generated power, but that the situation is not being managed at all. Electricity is a volatile energy that cannot be economically stored and as such requires advanced level of management to generate and distribute. Whatever is produced, whether used or not, is gone forever and can never be recalled. This is not a commodity that can be produced and kept to be transmitted at a later time. We all know our repertoire for the managements of physical items such as oil. The highest level of computation is, therefore, usually involved in electricity management in order to know what is needed, where is needed, and when is needed, to meet the demand, otherwise the electricity produced goes to waste.
One could argue that we could produce more than is needed without serious management, pray that nothing happens and allow it to waste. In a commercialised setting, the cost would be too exorbitant unless the process is subsidised by government; and for how long would that be sustained. For instance, what is the point in sending the same amount of energy all throughout the day to residential areas when more than half of the people are either at work or at school only for them to get back home and have no light? If our chance for success in this regard, and other areas, is the level of education of our leadership, maybe there is hope. That is if lack of higher degree of education at leadership level was our problem. Because now, for the first time, we have number one, number two and number four positions in the country being occupied by graduates. In this vein, I hope very soon, PHCN or whatever would be asked intelligent questions. Public electric utility generation and transmission management is not for mediocre. It is not at the same mundane level as generating electricity at home; if you get my drift. It is good to generate enough, but can it be sustained? After all, Egbin Power Station has always had 12 turbines, but at best we could only sustain firing 5 turbines at any time.
Samuel Akinyele Caulcrick,
Lagos
.
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Authors 
Posted by Robot| 21.11.2007 12:40