A woman scorned...

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Is a scary thing.

Mr President, you're a married man and word has it that Mrs Jonathan is no pushover.

So you can probably imagine the ire of 30 million madams who are expecting better light.

And now you've got a facebook page

(Actually I think you may have had one for a while but one local newspaper drew our eye in your direction)

Your excellency, this is damn risky.

I recommend that you work on the communications and delivery of this whole light thing. Otehrwise your "wall" might start to look like graffiti central.

By the way does this mean we are too old school with our little blog ?

Should we get a facebook page as well ?

Do we tweet when NEPA does its thing ?

Gawd. The dilemmas of modern life.
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No light as usual

Here we go again  crazy people do not give electricity.

My dear husband called me this morning to find out what NEPA situation is since he left and my answer was as an undiscribable sound which I believe only one man can interpret and he got it right.

No NEPA oooooooooooooo

I am really pissed, have to go and pay them a visit this weekend.

Mrs Okada

Day off

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Well its Sunday and I think there is at least one big book prescribing a day off.

So instead of NEPA there will be enlightening reading and broadening of the mind.

Like this

And then if you're prone to worrying you should read this .

You might think that one is bad news. But think about it. All that disruption to stuff that Nigeria does not really have. We'll be fine !! In fact we should be selling our services to the world now !!!

"How to cope without all the crap you take for granted"....

Finally a market niche that suits our situation.

Alright thats it for today.

Got to go and pack the bags for the squatter.

I am sending him to Calabar (apparently they've told the world there are 20,000 militants in the Niger Delta that need retraining and I'm damned if we're going to miss out entirely).

P.S.    GO GHANA  !!!  (see what you can do with a tight young side that has been consistently developed)
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Missing in Action (MIA)

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Yes, a little guilt again over not posting for a few days.

Mr Okada is on the road.

Madam Okada reports that NEPA is also seemingly MIA.

She's not seen evidence of them in 3 days (but the neighbours and the squatter mention brief daytime appearances).

A friendly face in Abuja has suggested that we all think of NEPA the wrong way.

Its not a power supplier - we mostly get our electricity from elsewhere and feel lucky when there is 'light'.

In fact, NEPA is a  rickety standby generator that kicks into action at  unpredictable times and
then slips back into its slumber.

Its a handy image - and it conjures up ideas of looking elsewhere for solutions to the power failures in the land.

NEPA workers beware- here lies the path of Nitel.

If you are so determined not to change your ways (and I admit many of your problems stem from your money stealing political masters) then your company will die a silent and unlamented death.

At this stage one could go into a long rant about how a company with a license to print money (they had the national network, an undersea fibre optic cable and a mobile phone license) can turn all that opportunity into a complete and utter flop.

NEPA and Nitel might at least go in the Guinness Book of Records  as truly world class under-performers.

But then if i wrote on that I would be late for work

Enjoy the weekend
(and the football without the spectacular  underperformers on the field - Bye bye France, Italy,  and the Super Eagles)
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Our battery is back !!

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For a long time now we've had some gear for defeating NEPA when we can.

It started as a little 1kva Inverter (about N25,000 at the time) and a truck battery and has since evolved after a little experimentation.

Now we have a either a 150or 200  amp battery, a cool little gadget for fast charging batteries, the inverter, and a little switch over that allows us to just run fans, lights and tv (thus avoiding accidentally overloading the little inverter).

However for a little while we've had batteries that gave some trouble and simply refused to last as long as they should (plus the squatter means 2 fans instead of 1 and at this level every amp counts).

At the weekend we tried a new brand - Altas 150amp sealed truck battery N28k at your nearest P.H store- and so far its done phenomenally well.

So we've had a very good weekend and just a few hours of NEPA but we might be able to go back to switching off the generator for at least half the night or more.

Happy indeed.

Its hard to put a price on the hours of silence and peace that come with the restoration of our battery game but its certainly a lot more than N28k per year (or even every 6 months if the battery doesn't last so long), not to speak of the cash savings.

Sunday 20 June results

Okada householders 1   NEPA/PHCN 0
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By way, those of you with concerns about power at a more academic level should also read this (apologies in advance that you'll need to log into the site but its worth it)
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Our NEPA meter is stalled !

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OK, so our NEPA meter is stalled because there has been no light for 2 days.

The honeymoon is over

(actually it was not so much a honeymoon as a cheap affair where our expectations were raised)

This also seems to be a variation on the standard NEPA script.

Somewhere there is a manual that says:

"Give them light for a couple of days. Distribute bills. Wait small.
Do lots of disconnections (you can charge N2,000 for reconnection). Give lots of light for a couple of days
to rub in your pay up message. Resume usual non-service"

They seem to have skipped straight to the last stage.

A little clip from Nigeria's most posh newspaper gives the idea

We don relax (too much)

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So yesterday for the first time in ages.....

We ran out of water in the big ol' tank beside the house.

Fuel ran out for the generator.

Generator went off last night (the squatter relaxed on his duty of checking the oil).

Why, you ask ?

We got comfortable with the routine of a few more hours of NEPA each day and then they changed their pattern on Monday to keep us on our toes (we didn't adjust fast enough).

Presently we seem to be on new regime of about 3 hours per day - from 3am to 6am, if at all.

Bad timing guys.

Mrs Okada is going to be grumpy when she gets to your office.
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The war has begun

They have started again. My earlier palavar with NEPA is obviously not over, now the war has resumed. I spoke with my contact Person in the Nepa office to complain about their outrageous bill, he simple adviced me to calculate my bill and pay what I think is due me.

I think he also mentioned that a new service centre has been opened not so far from us, that I can lay my complaints there.

I have an appointment to see my contact person on Friday.
These people  are really strange, they cannot do a simple mathematics of calculating bills or rectifying one for that matter.

I shall keep you informed of my progress with them

Mrs Okada

Your NEPA bill don come o

Finally - after many months of absence - a NEPA bill for the month of June.

Its for 13,000 Naira

Our last bill was in January.

What has happened to the intervening months ?

Its a mystery.

Less of a mystery is the 13k - almost all of it is arrears.

The same arrears Mrs Okada spent 2 days battling NEPA offices over in January before they agreed to rectify.

Quote for the day from Mrs O (as she departs for work)

"I am going to war!"

(Bonus item- NEPA accidentally delivered a neighbour's bill to us - N81,000. Seems they may have some issues also)

Who stole my post ?

I wrote a perfectly nice post about the conclusion of our weekend (continued 20 hours per day light) and it seemed to go through.

And then it seems the internet ate it.

I blame Obama (everyone is doing that right now)

NEPA and the World Cup

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Firstly apologies again for the breaks in transmission.

It turns out that this daily blog game can be quite a challenge when life gets busy.

Right now there is no excuse - the Okadas are in outer Lagos and enjoying a weekend away.

(bits of Lagos are looking decidedly better by the way with greenery, walkways, and tidiness that is a pretty big contrast to some years past. Not all of it but enough to impress).

So this Lagos visit brings two things to mind.

The general strangeness of NEPA distribution - here we are almost in the village and getting about 18 hours of light per day. Its been great, but how come ?

We've never quite figured why our neighbourhood slipped from a healthy 12 hours of electricity per day to our miserly (sometimes) one hour per day, and now seems to be on a modest rebound.

While we're on the rebound our co-workers mostly do not seem to be quite so exuberant.

But the peace and quiet of an almost rural estate with breeze, no generator noise, ahhhh bliss.

The other random thought is NEPA and football - in years past there used to be stories of attacks on NEPA offices when the electricity went off.

Not heard mention of this in years.

I think things have passed the stage where people expect NEPA to work. This little column gives an insight to the strange level of collapse that is the byword for state run services. Its a long road back when things get this bad but at least people are talking about it.

To close - a wee thank you to Mr President.

Thank you sir for appointing Mr Jega and some others to INEC. We don't know the man but he comes with a credible reputation which is more than you can say for his predecessor.

 Its only a start, but its nice to know that we might be able to vote you in or out of office based on your performance. (Suggest you keep working on this light problem though if you want our vote o!)

Sorry o - we don thief your light !!

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Alright so things are a bit more back to mormal.

Either the engineer at the NEPA control room has regained consciousness (see yesterday's post) or they've dragged him away and replaced him with someone "in between".

Of course there was absolutely no light last night when we hosted a visitor in from Abuja and only a couple of hours early this evening but still better than our pathetic normal "service".


Careful research suggests that our light might be borrowed from elsewhere - our regular taxi driver has been giving only one answer to the question of NEPA in his area the last few days 

"Its terrible, nothing nothing......"

And the same from our other correspondent in the highly scientific survey of 2 persons

On a more definite note some kudos to the World Bank and the Federal Government for deciding that its time to put at least some real money into renewables like solar, wind, biomass etc etc.

Its $200m - thats pretty micro in comparison to the billions and billions spent on regular power but its still a really big leap in support for renewables whose previous funding was pretty tiny.

We hereby volunteer our services as a pilot for urban solar pilot projects. We promise to be good, transparent, and wise users (and to sell our NEPA meter to the highest bidder). Governor Amaechi and relevant international agencies take note.
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Someone Call An Ambulance !!

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Yes, we're worried.

We know that electricity for our area is run from a control room that is pretty manual (1970s era) and requires someone to switch our little part of town on to receive electricity.

And in recent times they seem to intermittently remember us for about an hour a day.

Well at the weekend we had light for most of an 18 hour stretch.

We're wondering if the engineer in the control room has had a dreadful accident and is unable to switch us off. Images of his body collapsed over the control panel (occasional twitches would explain our brief losses of power)are floating through our minds.

It was so bizarre that none of us bothered to put our glorious little washing machine to work because we were pretty much convinced for all of Sunday morning the electricity would go off at any moment.

However now washing, ironing, tea and toast are all done to beyond our heart's content.

[In case you are wondering if this is early evidence of  Presidentially inspired improvement we are awaiting further evidence. Careful consultation with our driver and neighbour over the fence -unbelievably in another zone- reveals they have been having a dreadful "no light" weekend. Are we suddenly special ?]

Yesterday, when we were done with consuming unusual amounts of electricity we went out to a rare cultural moment when this young author was doing a book reading in a posh hotel in town.

Book readings may sound like dull affairs to the uninititated but this was great fun - a rolling discussion and debate of 419 (email scammers), corruption, and what people do in desperate circumstances- all perfectly reasonable seeing as her novel was a comedy based around a young man falling into very bad ways.

Buy her book !! - Mr and Mrs Okada will buy you a beer/wine/beverage if you're disappointed (and we don't expect to be shelling out too often)

Customer of little faith

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Well madam's crossed fingers worked and Mr Okada is a man of undue pessimism.

We got about 3 hours of electricity last night.

That's three times this week there has been electricity in the evening (for a while)

Can't remember the last time that happened.

So we're watching dodgy (pirated) DVDs and reading books from this lot. We can particularly recommend "Imagine this" by Sade Adeniran

Today is much more normal - strictly natural solar lighting- so lets see what the next week brings.
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Uncross the fingers

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I don't think Madam is too lucky today.

There was light for about 90 minutes this afternoon and one does not usually expect to see a return visit from our NEPA friends.

Tis' rainy season at last (serious droughts in the north)so its a little bit cooler for those that don't want to run their generator all night.

We've not had a NEPA bill since January.

Have they given up on us ?

Mr Okada

COOOOOOOOOL ROOM

I'm here again today to let you know how happy I was yesterday night, I bedroom was really coooooooool;but you can be sure there was no NEPA when I got back home just an evidence that they were there at some point.

I suspect this last few days powder might be because they want to come and disconnect or bring bills which have been absent in the last 4 months.

Keeping my fingers crossed for tonight.

Mrs Okada

2 sets of wash

Aha, there was about 3 hours of electricity from NEPA last night after a few days of dark ages. Madam was happy because she was able to do two sets of wash; which is a novelty nowadays. There was also a radio show this morning, the Finance Executive was asked why people receive estimated bills. His answer was that all over the world estimated bills are given and then they are rectified when meter is read. True; but do they ever come to read the meter? Even when I take my log they still do not rectify the billing.

Oh! they did not bring May bill again, so I will not know if my complaint has been rectified. Keeping my fingers crossed that said bill will arrive today.

Know HOPE (maybe)

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Its been a week since the last post and am feeling that we've been slacking from the original idea of a short post daily.

However a new month and new resolutions (plus some provocations)

First up, a friend skypes over this article from Punch

The key bits:
Residents and companies in Lagos and Abuja are soon to enjoy 16 and 24 hours power supply, according to a proposal by the Presidential Action Committee on Power.

Also to have 16-hour minimum electricity like Lagos are cities with what the committee called “stranded generation capacities.” The cities are Kano, Kaduna, Ibadan, Onitsha and Nnewi. The cities were chose because they are regional industrial and commercial hubs.

Port Harcourt, Rivers State; Aba, Abia State; Uyo, Akwa Ibom State are grouped by the committee alongside Abuja for 24-hour uninterrupted power supply

Its this kind of nonsense - both from the committee and unquestioning reporting - that gets the power sector an even worse name than it deserves.

So Port Harcourt's power supply is going to jump from its present patchy coverage to 24 uninterrupted supply soon ????

In your dreams.
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Meanwhile last week (covered both weekends) was a slightly improved effort by our shockingly low standards - 16 units of electricity. Just past 100 Naira's worth. Or over 10 days, there is 16 hours of running 1,000watts worth of stuff.

We haven't had more than 16 hours of electricity in that period so that also gives some idea of our consumption when we do get power.

Hopefully we'll be posting more regularly from here - Mrs Okada has said she'll be signing in a bit as well.
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