One More Power Tussle!

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Today has been crazy! One thing I detest getting involved in is any banter that has to do with the power holders in my state. I just dislike talking with them because it’s akin to talking to the police and other law enforcement agencies. They’d frustrate you, and even when you’re within your rights, they’ll do their best to extort more money from you.

As a result, I do my best to avoid them. One surefire way to do this is by making sure that all bills are promptly paid before the due date, so that they have no reason to knock on my door. It’s difficult, and keeping up with such an obligation is not easy, especially when you consider how epileptic the power system is. Yet, I do it.

That way, I have limited access to them. And thankfully, my neighbors are also of the same mindset. They pay their bills on time, so we don’t get visits from them. We can go for months without seeing a ladder mounted against our pole. Because collectively, we dislike it! Disconnecting one person can inadvertently disconnect someone else. A simple mistake that might not be noticed until later on, when power is restored.

And as a result of all this, we have a pretty seamless relationship. We pay our bills on time, and they leave us alone. Sadly though, that’s not always the case. I already told you about how they decided to disconnect all of us simply because one person was owing and they needed us to motivate the defaulter to pay. They came twice and disconnected us twice, even though we later fixed it. But then, as I mentioned earlier, every encounter with them always involved one form of extortion or the other.

And today, it all went crazy yet again. You see, the bill for each month is sent directly to our phones, and when we get it, we know that it’s time to pay. And since we use postpaid, we only pay the bills for power already consumed in the previous month. And last month was one of the darkest months because for the first two weeks, we didn’t have power. I heard somewhere that it affected the entire town and needed serious fixing. Well, it was bad enough that we stayed two weeks without power. And when it came, it was always blinking.

So, the month of May was basically flickering at best. Which is why when we didn’t see a bill this month, we thought it was to compensate. Because they’ve done something similar before. Years ago, when power was down for weeks, bills weren’t sent. However, we all thought something similar was happening. They didn’t send the bill, and despite how we were all waiting, no one had seen theirs. We could go online and work it, but many of us were skeptical; we didn’t want to pay it and then have the bill turn up later on showing something else.

So we waited. And we waited. Until this afternoon!!!

They came with their ladder and mounted it against our pole! Somehow, they were shocked that none of us had gotten the bill. Yet, we were about to be punished for it, a problem that they created. They dropped everyone’s wires at once and said the only way they could reconnect them was if everyone paid their bills there and then. Thankfully, most of us had the money ready because we had been waiting for them.

But still, they wanted more. They tried to make us pay them extra, but none of us were willing to even budge. They reconnected the wires and tried to guilt us into giving them extra money, but we were stoic. They had been prompt in disconnecting us, yet they wanted us to tip them as if we were friends or they did us a favor. We all stayed outside until they picked up their ladder and left.

That is just another day, with another NEPA wahala. This has taught us all a lesson though, going forward, we won’t wait for their bills anymore. Once it gets to a certain part of the month, we simply go online, check our bill, and pay it. No fuss, no muss! Because every time they disconnect us, they rarely reconnect us well. There will always be an issue that has to be fixed, so I try my best to avoid getting disconnected. But these guys are always quick to drop them. Crazy!

Well, it’s all good. It’s all been fixed. So, all is well that ends well, I guess.

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_{Thank you for reading. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below, I would love to know what you’re thinking. Till we meet in the next post.}

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_{N.B: All images used in this post are mine. The thumbnail was designed using Canva.}

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