Darkness

you know what really gets my goat? i know, i know, you're thinking, "pandave, shall we bring sandwiches to this picnic, it's probably going to take a while." so let me whittle it down a bit. you know what gets my goat today? oh, no still too long a list. okay, right now. what gets my goat right now?

ELECTRICITY. nigeria's electricity to be precise.

my dear friend kai has been in nigeria for years now and, if i quoted her every time she said the lights were out, i would have a tome to challenge war and peace. but let me tell you what gets me riled up. first of all, when obasanjo came into power he was all giddy with the excitement of his win that he made all kinds of promises - one of them being "uninterrupted power" for Lagos. two terms later, the one thing i could guarantee with kai was that the lights would go out while we were chatting online. and that she would be spending a substantial amount of time queuing for petrol to power the generator (and don't get me started on why folk in the 6th largest oil producer in opec has people queuing for overpriced petrol). and one thing she could be sure of was a monthly electric bill that never took into account the atrocious service the power supplier was giving. instead people were just expected to shake their heads and resignedly sigh "ah, NEPA (National Electricity Power Authority)". of course obasanjo never went a day in the dark. he never had to figure out how to sleep in the heat of summer with no air conditioner. he never had to wonder what he was going to do about all the stuff rotting in his fridge.

we now have had a new president and still no power. and now kai goes for days, no weeks, on end with no power. she now has two generators and tries not to think about how much money she could save if she didn't have to spend it all on petrol for the generator.

and so now i read on the bbc that obasanjo has written a letter trying to defend his lack of progress. he refused to attend said meeting, he said, because the person who signed the invitation was too lowly for his attention. not because he should be too ashamed to try to defend the $16 billion that have been spent with no improvement in power supply. not because he would be hard pressed to the payment of millions to 34 companies that never existed. because maybe someone at the meeting might ask him what happened to the promises that he made. instead, he implored the investigation panel to stop looking into what is going on because this would scare off private investors - as they don't want to feel "criminalised". oh yes panel, you stop your probe because the previous probeless years resulted in such gains... financially... for the investors who just had to sit around and wait for the hook up.

yeah, let's just keep on lining up for fuel for our generators and sitting in stifling darkness so that billions more can be spent making private partners feel good. as long as the presidential palace has uninterrupted power, that is what matters. the rest of you can just eat cake batter.