Hook

A cornerstone of the Nigerian experience is the country's abusive relationship with electricity; some days, it serves as a source of joy, and on others, it is the final straw. Referring to the relationship as abusive may seem excessive, but the people who have lived there will have an endless amount of anecdotal experience to back me up.

Intro- synopsis

From my childhood the most memorable phrase was “Up Nepa” The excitement of electricity actually supplied from the government, it was an instant spike in serotonin when I heard the high-pitched squeak alerting that NEPA had brought light, they were a real-life Santa Claus delivering electricity to your home but you had to act quick because you didn't know when it would be gone again. This wasn't a unique experience.

How NEPA Fails -

In a recent YouTube video I watched by Aisha Ayan, she said, "Well done, Nigeria, for completely messing up the cognitive function of your citizens ", this was said about someone speaking on how the lack of electricity had little to no impact on the daily lives of Nigerians, regardless of how unserious and ridiculous this take seems it is not a rare stance, many netizens have become totally dissociated due to the inconsistency and borderline absence of electricity, so much so that they have convinced themselves that it is a luxury and infact not necessary, but could you imagine going hours if not days on end without electricity? Simple activities become far more burdensome, electric devices become useless, and even air conditioning is just a fantasy.
This is the reality of many; it affects how they work, how they interact with others and how they conduct business (may need work)
All businesses, from small to large, depend on electricity to run, but bigger businesses can afford to just have their generators running 24/7, whereas a local shop cannot afford the luxuries or inconveniences it brings, such as the constant noise of the generator begging for rest or the fumes it's polluting the area with.

(Find point of conjunction that's not too cliche)but it was not always like this .

History-

For those that don't know, NEPA is the National Electric Power Authority. Founded in 1972 through a merger of the electricity corporation of Nigeria and the Niger Dams Authority. They were the governing body of electricity supply in Nigeria up until 2005, this era started strong with fairly consistent electricity to select parts of the country but quickly fell behind due to being plagued with underinvestment and gross mismanagement, which was the perfect pitfall for the descent into inconsistent electrity supply(might add information that might mess with flow). In 2005, they were rebranded into Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN). This was done in an effort to privatize and improve the energy sector, but this was far easier said than done due to the infrastructure debt accrued by the NEPA era. Despite no longer being in official existence, the notoriety and the swagger of the word NEPA has maintained its status as a household name till today. By 2013, they had decided to fully lean into privatization by unbundling PHCN into 18 successor companies, which brings us to 2025, the year of our lord, where the same 17 private companies and the TCN are trying to try their best.

The truth is that today, the grid cannot keep up with the expansion of the people; only roughly 45% of Nigerians are even connected to the grid at all, but even then, there are almost constant grid collapses. Between 2014 and 2019, there were 97 grid collapses.

This unreliability has created a very deep-rooted distrust in the grid, to the extent that people don't even expect electricity from the grid. Many Nigerians have opted for gasoline generators, which provide 40,000 MW, which far surpasses the national grid.

Although I understand this reliance on generators to be a way to take care of yourself, I don't think it is progress in the right direction, because it is almost a self-centred approach to a problem that everyone is experiencing, it is a bit idealistic of me but for Nigeria to truly develop i believe that more capital and social investments must be made to better the energy sector from power generation all the way to distribution.

Dangote refinery -

Innovation in Nigerian energy companies -

As with any problem, there's an immense opportunity for businesses to flourish. Multiple solar companies that have sprung out of Nigeria , in hopes of improving the situation , such as …

As they say, a picture is a thousand words or somn like that so to close off, I'll leave you this meme I found