28/03/2026
“A Nation in the Dark: Where Light Has Become a Privilege”
Nigeria does not merely experience darkness; it lives with it, breathes it, negotiates with it daily like an uninvited guest that refuses to leave.
Electricity, once a public utility, has now become a quiet luxury—like imported wine or foreign education. In the heart of power, even the seat of authority adapts. A*o Rock Presidential Villa is turning toward solar energy, a ₦10 billion lifeline away from the fragile national grid. Across ministries and agencies, rooftops bloom with solar panels like metallic sunflowers, silently admitting what everyone already knows: the grid can no longer be trusted.
Yet for the ordinary Nigerian, there is no such graceful escape.
A small business owner wakes each morning to fight a three-headed dragon: fuel cost, erratic supply, and outrageous billing. Before a single naira is earned, money has already been spent—on generators that roar like restless beasts, on inverters that blink with false promises, on fuel that disappears faster than profit. Even after paying for transformers, poles, and cables—essentially building parts of the grid themselves—distribution companies still arrive with estimated bills that feel like ransom notes.
It is a cruel irony: the man who buys the ladder is still charged for climbing it.
The classification of electricity into Bands—A, B, C, D, and E—was meant to bring order, but instead, it has become a hierarchy of hope and despair. Band A customers, promised up to 20 hours of power daily, live in relative illumination. Their homes glow; their businesses hum. They are the fortunate few, standing in the light.
Band B and C hover in uncertainty—half-light, half-darkness—like a sky that cannot decide between dawn and dusk.
But it is in Bands D and E where the true story of Nigeria is written. Here, electricity is not a service; it is a rumor. Days pass without supply. Weeks stretch into silence. When power finally comes, it arrives like a thief in the night—brief, unpredictable, and gone before it can be trusted.
So Nigerians adapt.
Rechargeable lamps hang in homes like modern lanterns of survival. Power banks become as essential as wallets. Phones—our connection to the world—are charged in churches, mosques, and roadside kiosks, turning places of worship into sanctuaries not just for the soul, but for batteries gasping for life.
At night, darkness does not fall—it settles. It wraps itself around homes like a heavy blanket. After a long day of labor, Nigerians return not to rest, but to endure. Fans go still. Fridges grow warm. Silence replaces the gentle hum of electricity.
For businesses, the struggle is even more brutal.
A barber cannot cut hair without power. A welder cannot weld. A cyber café becomes a museum of dead screens. Profit margins shrink, not because customers are absent, but because electricity is. Every litre of fuel burned is a tax on ambition. Every blackout is a thief stealing hours, productivity, and dreams.
Meanwhile, those who can afford solar systems turn to panels manufactured by foreign—mostly Chinese—companies. It is a bittersweet victory: light is restored, but at the cost of draining national foreign reserves. Nigeria, rich in sunlight, pays dearly to harvest what falls freely from its own sky.
The government, under Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has committed billions of dollars to revamp the sector, placing leadership in the hands of Adebayo Adelabu. There is effort, there is intention—but there is also history.
The ghost of the past lingers.
Whispers of the $16 billion power sector investment in the early 2000s, funds that vanished into the fog of mismanagement, haunt every flicker of light. One cannot help but wonder: if that seed had been nurtured, would Nigeria still be groping in the dark today?
So the question remains, heavy and unresolved: where did we get it wrong?
Perhaps it is not just policy, but continuity. Not just funding, but accountability. Not just generation, but distribution. The problem is not a single broken link—it is an entire chain weakened over decades.
And so, Nigeria continues—half in light, half in shadow.
A nation where electricity is planned like a luxury, consumed like a privilege, and missed like a loved one.
Because in Nigeria today, power is not just energy.
It is dignity.
Now, over to you:
How has the struggle with power supply affected your daily life—your business, your home, your peace of mind?
Have you found ways to cope, or are you still battling the darkness?
