A Day in the Life of a Nigerian: Battling Generator Woes

Yesterday went differently than I thought it would. Normally I expected to spend most of my day learning a course on Udemy, but the power holding company in Nigeria did not provide electricity throughout the day.

It happened to be election day, so I think that would be the reason why they chose not to provide electricity so that nobody would stay home instead of going out to vote. I happened not to have a voter's card, which is why I was home all through.

As there was no electricity, there had not been any water at my place for four days, and my reservoir had run dry. I needed light and water, but neither were available.

I decided to use my generator to pump water, but my generator was misbehaving. At first, it worked perfectly, then it stopped. I serviced the generator two weeks ago, so I was not expecting it to develop a fault.

I spent hours trying to turn the generator on, but it refused. I tried contacting the Gen mechanic who helped service it last time, but he said he was unavailable.

That’s how I spent the whole day trying to contact someone to check on my generator. I got different phone numbers for Gen Mechanic from friends; they were going, but no one picked their lines.

I was at that point of frustration and was tired until one of them called me back. I was happy that at least I would have someone to service my generator, but at the same time, I was concerned about how much he would bill me.

The last guy that worked on my gen billed me #3500 naira, about $5. I didn’t have much on me, and I never planned the expense.

The guy later came, but it was already evening. I had slept the whole day battling on my Gen issue without fulfilling many of my goals for the day.

I was pissed, but I got calm knowing that someone was coming to service my generator and I would be able to have water and light at home

It was figured out that water had entered my generator, which was why it misbehaved. He was finally able to resolve the issue, but I was already tired 🥱. I couldn’t go anywhere else that day.

At least, I was glad my generator got fixed and that I had to fill up my reservoir with water.

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