Anambra State citizens bemoan the hardships caused by the development as electricity supplies in the five South East states continue to diminish. Every major town in the state is experiencing acute water scarcity.
There is hardly any public water supply in Anambra. For instance, over the years, there has been no activity at all at the state water supply and public utilities offices, which have remained merely physical locations.
Because of this, a lot of families get their water via sumo-powered boreholes that are bored into their homes.
However, the majority of Anambra’s energy supply has been epileptic for about two months.
While the majority of Anambra has continued to experience constant darkness, the areas that do receive electricity are only able to receive low voltage, which is insufficient to run any kind of domestic device, including sumo presses.
Families find it difficult to obtain water because many commercial water sellers are discouraged from entering the market due to the high cost of petrol and fuel.
Many water sellers have stopped selling water, and the ones who do usually charge extremely high prices.
For instance, most people who live in high-rise buildings in the Okpuno district of Awka and cannot afford to use their private boreholes for water pumping must rely on public boreholes, the majority of which are located in remote areas.
A resident, Mrs Rose Obasi said: “In the 10 years I have stayed in Awka, I have never experienced this level of suffering. Almost throughout this term, my children have been going late to school.
“The reason is that they wake up and go to fetch water every morning; before they come back and prepare for school, it is already late.
“The stress they undergo to take water up to the third storey-building where we stay is another work. We are really suffering, and I don’t know when this will come to an end.”
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A final year student of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, was full of frustration over the situation which had made them spend unnecessarily.
“I bathed this morning with sachet water. There was no light and we could not find any means of pumping water in our hostel.
“Remember the price of petrol is equally unfriendly. Nigeria is fast becoming uninhabitable,” she lamented.
Power users in Onitsha, the heavily populated commercial center of Anambra State, also voiced concerns about the inadequate supply of electricity and demanded that the Enugu Electricity Distribution Company (EEDC), the company that provides power, revoke its license.
Reacting to this, the EEDC has insisted that it has the power to supply electricity in the entire South East zone, but stated that the supply of gas has been a major challenge.
In a press release by the spokesperson of the organisation, Mr Emeka Ezeh, EEDC said: “We wish to inform our esteemed customers that the current state of power supply within its network which has resulted in a drop in supply availability is due to low power generation caused by gas constraints to the thermal generating companies.
“This situation is beyond us, and this is not peculiar to EEDC. This development has resulted in low generation, leading to a reduction in the quantum of daily megawatt hour (MWH) of energy allocated to distribution companies nationwide.
“Consequently, the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), which is our primary source of power supply is constrained, as they only transmit what is generated and have resorted to System Load-shedding to forestall possible system collapse.
