Calabar, Nigeria – Most parts of the capital of Cross River State, Calabar, have been without electricity for about three weeks now since the heavy downpour that destroyed some properties in the city.
The power outage has led to the downturn of economic activities in the first capital of Nigeria.
Notable areas affected by this blackout are Marian, the economic hub of Calabar. Others are some parts of Murtala Mohammed Highway, State Housing, and some parts of Calabar South and Municipality respectively.
In some areas like IBB by Etta Agbor, where power is being restored, there is low voltage, while some areas see power sparingly as compared to a few months ago.
Converseer reports that Marian by Atekong, the area where economic activities are being conducted 24/7 has not seen electricity since Saturday, November 9, 2024.
Before then, the area was without electricity for months over a spoilt transformer.
Speaking with one of the business owners in the area, Pato, who sells drinks, he said he has been running generator to keep his drinks in a cold condition, and he is running out of profit as well.
“The place I manage, we sell drinks and it’s 24 hours daily, and it has not been easy in the past weeks. You know how much it costs to buy fuel, and you can’t add it to your drinks because customers won’t buy seeing how the economy is – they will tell you that other places are selling at normal rates – we have to run at a lost to keep the business going.
“This is the third week since the heavy rain and nothing is being said about the light. It wasn’t even long when we had light because our transformer was bad for months – they have to come and carry it and that’s how we were burning Gen – and you know how this business is, once you stop selling for a few days, customers will think you’re not serious and they’ll leave you for another place. Please, they should fix the light, that’s all we are saying,” he pleaded.
Another electricity user, Ehis, told our Reporter, “I contacted the Manager of PHED, and he said we were going to have a light on Sunday, November 24,” this is November 26, and there is no electricity in these areas.
When our Reporter visited the Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Plc (PHED) office in Calabar on Tuesday, one of the staff said they were working on the power issues in the affected areas.
Meanwhile, when a customer, Volunteer Agbor, complained on the Facebook Page of PHED that, “State Housing Calabar in total blackout for almost two weeks now…Nobody is saying anything about it. Na so this Christmas go be?,” the Admin of the Page responded, “Dear Customer, the outage in your area is due to a technical fault. Our team is on-site working to restore power, We assure you that we are following up closely in ensuring resolution.”
Converseer reports that last month and earlier this month, the PHED increased the electricity tariff and cost of purchasing prepaid metres.