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.