Dark Nights

Light flickered and a sound like that of sachet water bursting followed. 

“ This is reason I always test the bulbs before handing them over to the customers”

“ Why did it burst like that, is it over current or what?”

“ Over current? Nah, this is what we are suffering from in this line of business. You order one carton of bulb containing 250 bulbs inside. Before you finish selling the carton, you would have about 50 or more damaged bulbs out of the 250”

“ Why continue dealing with the company?, change to another company”

“This firm is the third am dealing with in two years. The story is the same. The country have degenerated into what we are witnessing. All sectors are like that”

“ And what happens to the damaged ones? You can’t bear the cost, the company must do something”

“ The previous two companies I deal with thought me Lessons am yet to forget. I returned almost a carton of bad bulbs to their distributor and it earned me nothing but insult and when i consulted the customer service of the company, the story was the same. I was asked in a rude way whether I believe I was their only customer. How come others are not complaining and I was the only complainer. Not even one was changed”

“Better than staying put and suffering in silence. Turn your back on then. Customers should be treated with respect. No matter how irrelevant they believed you’re, it is still minus one in their customer’s list”

“Am not sure they noticed or care. The society is structured to depend on them helplessly”

That was the discussion I had with my electrical dealer in the popular market in my city here. I had gone there is to buy five bulbs the 12th in a month. I was in a hast to meet up with my other appointments and asked him to just bag the bulbs and hand them over but he wisely insisted in checking them in my presence like they do nowadays.

I think that practice became popular among them due to high rate of shouting match and police cases involved. Could you believe that three out of the five he tested were bad. Not even that they would silently flicker off but this bursting like bomb is the part that concerns me a lot. 

I was later to hear that the man had shouting match with one woman two days earlier on the same bad bulbs. The woman had complained that the bulbs the man gave him was bad ones while the dealer insisted that they were good when they left his shop. Police was contacted on account of two bulbs and the man ended up handing over grudgingly another two bulbs.

The man and the woman wasn’t even done afterwards. They ended the show with prophecies of death and ill luck to their business and families and cap it all in Jesus name. 

You might be wondering how much a bulb cost to warrant wishing death to families and businesses, it does cost nowadays anyway. There is even rumors that the quality is what it’s due to bad economy. Three years ago, a bulb cost 50 naira now, it is 150 naira. Imagine the jump. Try to know why behind the jump and the answer you get is either:

  “ if am able to answer you that question, what would government answer you?”

   OR

“It’s vat and overhead” 

Electricity, items related to it, the people working in the sector is one bad news that have refused to walk away in peace. You can’t believe what is happening there when told. 

Could you believe that before the country changed to prepaid meters, the electricity company was the most lucrative sector after oil companies in the country. Every graduate wants to work there, every minister wants to be assigned portfolio there. Imagine sending estimated bills to people each month and when they tarry in paying up, the cable that led from Pole to their meters were cut and seized until they pay the estimated bill and the for their own wires before settling the staffs that would come to fix the cables back.

So you could imagine people’s joy when government came with their prepaid meters. Not long after that, the companies producing bulbs came out with their own of siphoning the little amount people saved from electricity bills. Bulbs that used to last for a year plus started lasting two months or less. 

People became economical with the light to their own detriment. One would see a flat that is completely in dark believing that no one was home until a light would flicker in a room and went off again. They would want to use the toilet seat and the light would be on just enough to see where to sit and off it goes again while you sit in dark there doing your business. The area would have light and yet, people would be using torch light. Their fridges were the only item they needed the light for. Rechargeable torches serve them financially better than the electricity. 

Psychological embedded society.

Even the local companies seems to have learnt their business acumen from the Chinese. Anyway, most of the so called local firms are mainly Chinese. They produce things bearing rate of turn over in mind. What they produce wasn’t meant to last for ever. It has expiry date. The company needs to be in business.

I had left my house yesterday morning with all my bulbs in tact. When I came back in the evening, I switched on the light and it flickered and went dead. Cursing, I had tried other rooms and three went dead on me too. I considered it normal in Nigeria. Good in the morning, bad in the night. I concluded that they have served me enough and it’s a kind of ingratitude not to be grateful. Three weeks life span. It was like three years. 

So I had went to my dealer for replacement and witnessed bursting ones that sounds like bombs for the first time. It was new to me. The ones I used just silently die on you. No smoke, no sound but this bursting is kind of frightening. Have the companies figured ways of killing or maiming the users too?

I came home with an electrician those guys that mill around where electrical equipments are sold and handing over their numbers to the dealers. I had problem with my shower room light. I had thought it was bad bulbs but it wasn’t it. So I came home with this young guy to take a look at it and the guy turn out to be worse than the bulbs existing in the country. 

  “ can I climb on the stool on my slippers?, I don’t want to take unnecessary risk with the current”

“ No problems. What is taking you long?” 

“ the wire that led to the switch is bad. I have traced it to the source. You need to buy new wires this is no more good”

“ I thought the problem was with the drop switch, how come wires?”

“ I have been testing it, it is the wires. It needs changing” 

It didn’t take me much to realized that the electrician is worst than the bulbs really. After given me lecture on how’s, why’s and when’s, he proceeded to put the five bulbs I bought and the first one he replaced and tapped the switch sounded like grenade and for the first time in my house, there was smoke.