"Up NEPA!". Does anybody recall that refrain? In the 1980s in Nigeria, it was an experience of exhilaration, joy and youthful excitement that signalled the restoration of electric power to homes. Then, it was a near automatic come- back-home call...sometimes stronger than the voice of my mother calling to me to return home from play. That shout echoed in homes and streets across Nigeria and for those who had television sets, they came on seconds afterwards. It used to be such a gesture worth celebrating from NEPA (we used to think) who were the the national mainstream electricity suppliers. At a point in my imagination, it seemed as though soap operas such as "Behind the Clouds", "Ripples", " Checkmate" and the likes were more interesting to watch if NEPA had just restored light. The experience of being without electricity (a sense of deprivation) and its eventual availability seemed to add colour and even more excitement to the prospects of watching TV. But why so?
There is an old saying that "You don't know what you have until you lose it" and that seemed to explain Nigerian's attitudes to the experience of enjoying electricity supply. You had to immediately bring out clothes for ironing in order to be decently dressed either to school or to work for the week. I recall how in secondary school, in my mother's 'cottage' then, we used to form queues for ironing clothes because you could never tell when NEPA would do the needful. Back to the question of why NEPA used to be a tonic for more enjoyment of watching TV, we used to hope that the timing of the restoration of electricity would be such that favoured our personal preferences for TV programming. So for my father who was an ardent follower of Nigeria's popular NTA News at 9pm, affirmative action from NEPA would be when electricity is restored between 8.30 pm and 9 pm as there was assurance that he would be able to watch and listen to the news without fear of a disruption. That would mean a loss of 30 minutes on our best soap operas if they held on Thursdays for "Checkmate" "Ripples" on Fridays, or on Tuesdays for "Behind the Clouds". It was a game of luck, NEPA could strike at any hour and their return was nearly as unknown as the second coming of Christ. When electricity was therefore restored, it was usually a matter of joy unspeakable.
Today the shouts of "Up NEPA" are gone. Now not necessarily because of a name change from NEPA to PHCN but because the experience has wearied the voices of millions of Nigerians whose voices have become tired from decades of screaming. Shouting is an energy sapping experience and sometimes the "Up NEPA" chorus used to be accompanied with some dancing. I'm not sure I did not do a Michael Jackson dance at least once to a NEPA favour! The long expectations of Nigerians of having electricity restored to their homes have left them mentally desolate and unwilling to prolong the tenure of pain and loss that NEPA has dealt them and their families psychologically. Nigerians have waited for years believing and hoping that one day we will be given what is a birthright in less endowed nations of the world but no, our corrupt leadership would have nothing of that. So rather than die in self pity, Nigerians have resorted to self help (the undertone of successfully living in Nigeria in the 21st century) and are today governments in their own homes. Nigerians buy their water and generate the water supply themselves. Electricity is provided by generators which you fuel from hard earned income. You create the fun and excitement which leadership has deprived a vast majority of Nigerians. Our youth resorted to the now infamous 'Yahoo Yahoo' exit route (by the way you need guts and brains to do that) while parents looked for other means of getting the life that seemed to pass them by without much help. NEPA realised this and went for broke. Generators became our own NEPA, which functioning depended heavily on the strength of our pockets.
It was only in the first five years of my life I recall I did not pay attention to the existence of NEPA, I have lived to adulthood and about to start a family of my own and dread the fact that my kids will come into a Nigeria grappling with finding her voice to shout "Up NEPA". We have had waste upon waste, governments have been just avenues for looting, state governors dip hands into states treasuries, ministers were reckless with funds, ordinary citizens soon realised they were not in the picture of development and started their own survival tactics. Militancy is a response to our leadership challenges.
I reiterate my call to the youths of today, we have been victims of irresponsible elders let us not do same to generations we will bear. Children that will come from us should not have these values translated to them for any reason. The future is what we make of teaching our young ones today. Our orientations are been formed, when we have opportunity please let us do right and teach our own children the values that our preceding generations abandoned. These are the values that place service about self enrichment, the greater good of all against narrow minded egotistic behaviour. Let us hope that we will in our time have the privilege to shout a final "Up NEPA" and never have to worry about when electricity will be taken away from us again.
God bless you and keep believing in the Nigeria of our future.
'Wole Aguda
There is an old saying that "You don't know what you have until you lose it" and that seemed to explain Nigerian's attitudes to the experience of enjoying electricity supply. You had to immediately bring out clothes for ironing in order to be decently dressed either to school or to work for the week. I recall how in secondary school, in my mother's 'cottage' then, we used to form queues for ironing clothes because you could never tell when NEPA would do the needful. Back to the question of why NEPA used to be a tonic for more enjoyment of watching TV, we used to hope that the timing of the restoration of electricity would be such that favoured our personal preferences for TV programming. So for my father who was an ardent follower of Nigeria's popular NTA News at 9pm, affirmative action from NEPA would be when electricity is restored between 8.30 pm and 9 pm as there was assurance that he would be able to watch and listen to the news without fear of a disruption. That would mean a loss of 30 minutes on our best soap operas if they held on Thursdays for "Checkmate" "Ripples" on Fridays, or on Tuesdays for "Behind the Clouds". It was a game of luck, NEPA could strike at any hour and their return was nearly as unknown as the second coming of Christ. When electricity was therefore restored, it was usually a matter of joy unspeakable.
Today the shouts of "Up NEPA" are gone. Now not necessarily because of a name change from NEPA to PHCN but because the experience has wearied the voices of millions of Nigerians whose voices have become tired from decades of screaming. Shouting is an energy sapping experience and sometimes the "Up NEPA" chorus used to be accompanied with some dancing. I'm not sure I did not do a Michael Jackson dance at least once to a NEPA favour! The long expectations of Nigerians of having electricity restored to their homes have left them mentally desolate and unwilling to prolong the tenure of pain and loss that NEPA has dealt them and their families psychologically. Nigerians have waited for years believing and hoping that one day we will be given what is a birthright in less endowed nations of the world but no, our corrupt leadership would have nothing of that. So rather than die in self pity, Nigerians have resorted to self help (the undertone of successfully living in Nigeria in the 21st century) and are today governments in their own homes. Nigerians buy their water and generate the water supply themselves. Electricity is provided by generators which you fuel from hard earned income. You create the fun and excitement which leadership has deprived a vast majority of Nigerians. Our youth resorted to the now infamous 'Yahoo Yahoo' exit route (by the way you need guts and brains to do that) while parents looked for other means of getting the life that seemed to pass them by without much help. NEPA realised this and went for broke. Generators became our own NEPA, which functioning depended heavily on the strength of our pockets.
It was only in the first five years of my life I recall I did not pay attention to the existence of NEPA, I have lived to adulthood and about to start a family of my own and dread the fact that my kids will come into a Nigeria grappling with finding her voice to shout "Up NEPA". We have had waste upon waste, governments have been just avenues for looting, state governors dip hands into states treasuries, ministers were reckless with funds, ordinary citizens soon realised they were not in the picture of development and started their own survival tactics. Militancy is a response to our leadership challenges.
I reiterate my call to the youths of today, we have been victims of irresponsible elders let us not do same to generations we will bear. Children that will come from us should not have these values translated to them for any reason. The future is what we make of teaching our young ones today. Our orientations are been formed, when we have opportunity please let us do right and teach our own children the values that our preceding generations abandoned. These are the values that place service about self enrichment, the greater good of all against narrow minded egotistic behaviour. Let us hope that we will in our time have the privilege to shout a final "Up NEPA" and never have to worry about when electricity will be taken away from us again.
God bless you and keep believing in the Nigeria of our future.
'Wole Aguda
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