Nigeria in the throes of darkness
Sir: From the years of centralized military control to the privatization experiments under President Olusegun Obasanjo and Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, electricity has remained Nigeria’s most stubborn paradox. Policies have changed,
Sir: From the years of centralized military control to the privatization experiments under President Olusegun Obasanjo and Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, electricity has remained Nigeria’s most stubborn paradox. Policies have changed, ownership has shifted, and institutions have been renamed, yet the nation still gropes daily for light.
This national condition echoes the atmosphere of Night, the classic poem by Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka written in the 1980s. In that poem, night is not passive; it is a force that presses upon the human spirit, breeds unease, and gives birth to unseen powers. The poet’s darkness is heavy, fertile, and menacing. Nigeria’s darkness functions in much the same way—an environment that does not merely withhold light but actively shapes behaviour, ethics, and destiny.
Today, electricity is rationed into bands—A, B, C, D, and E—an alphabet of inequality that reflects both scarcity and frustration. In urban centres, many middle-class Nigerians openly contemplate how to bypass meters, manipulate bills, or enjoy power without payment. This moral compromise is not born purely of greed but of exhaustion: erratic supply that bears no resemblance to the charges demanded. In rural communities, communal billing often becomes inflated and opaque, deepening distrust between citizens and distributors. Thus, darkness corrupts not only infrastructure but civic virtue.
The persistence of blackout culture is inseparable from political will. Nigeria does not lack experts, ideas, or even pilot successes. What is lacking is sustained commitment beyond rhetoric. The removal of electricity from the exclusive to the concurrent list was hailed as a breakthrough. In practice, it has delivered limited results.
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Electricity infrastructure demands colossal investment, technical depth, and long-term planning—resources many states simply do not possess.
Like Soyinka’s night that “bears children and raises forces,” Nigeria’s power outages generate consequences that multiply quietly. Industries shut down or relocate. Youths drift into idleness. Creativity withers under the hum of generators. Consumption replaces production, because it is easier to import than to manufacture in darkness. Education suffers when students read by candlelight, and healthcare falters when power becomes a matter of luck rather than policy.
Ultimately, electricity in Nigeria remains firmly under governmental control—regulated, licensed, and supervised by the state in all its forms. Each collapse of the national grid is therefore not an accident of fate but a reflection of priorities. It suggests a troubling comfort with darkness, a tolerance for secrecy, and an accommodation of dysfunction. In a nation where “secret things of darkness” too often thrive, blackout becomes both symptom and signal.
Until Nigeria chooses light—not only as voltage but as vision—the night will continue to weigh heavily on the nation’s brow, just as it once pressed upon the poet’s imagination. And like that poem’s darkness, it will keep shaping lives in ways both seen and unseen.
•Obiotika Wilfred Toochukwu, Nkono-Ekwulobia, Anambra State.
