Change has come, and it is speedily taking its tolls. It is affecting every facet of our lives, private and national. No exception, change is falling in line. Such is the change that it is turning whatever comes its way upside down and inside out. Now, this particular one is exceptionally tragic. It is having negative effects on everything that affects us. It has taken up a new name, having a completely new label. It is wearing a befitting fresh toga. And it is a perfect fit. A time for a new identity. This is a reversal of role. It is a great transition from light to darkness. Be warned, no longer should the National Power Grid be so known and called. Never, ever. Why? What other name would you call a power grid that collapsed effortlessly and carelessly 28 times in just nine months? Oh, National Collapsed Grid, of course! There is no viable alternative. Mind you, all other documents, both fake and genuine, criminally remain the same. It has potted into perennial deterioration and permanent collapse. The report courtesy, Sunday Punch, was frightening and alarming: “The nation’s power grid has collapsed 28 times this year, the highest since 2011, as the quantum of spinning reserve aimed at forestalling such occurrence remains low.” There is even no light at the end of our peculiar tunnel. Sad indeed. The graphic breakdown of the collapses is appalling and horrific. The affected months were March, April, May, June, July, September, October, November and December. Together, they recorded 22 total collapses and six partial ones. Only August had a rare lucky escape. We made some “outstanding achievements” in the years past. For example in 2014, the grid collapsed “only” 12 times. We strived hard and reduced it to “mere’ 10 times in 2015. This year, we had a change of heart. We went back, farther than Egypt. While 2016 is yet to run to an end, we escalated the collapse to scandalous 28 times. We did that in “just” nine months. We are going higher someday. The development was allegedly attributed to the upsurge in attacks on pipelines in the Niger Delta. This left over 3,500MW of the nation’s power generation capacity idle. We are always very eager and enthusiastic to give excuses for our failures and inadequacies. There must be an explanation, either reasonable or otherwise for every misstep. Notwithstanding, Olade Amada offered to explain away a typical power collapse. Let us listen to him, he runs Eko Electricity Distribution Company: “Sometimes, if a machine trips at a generation station and takes out a lot of load, it can cause it. At times, there could be problems on the transmission line. If any of the lines trips off, there will be a load swing which, will desabilise the system.” What then is the solution and/or alternative? “We are supposed to have a generator running on standby, so if there is any chunk offload that is out of the system suddenly, that generator will just take it up and balance the load.” This could only happen in this our weird clime. A country run on generators! It is stranger than fiction. It is our own odd way of eking a living. Anything not unusual is alien to us. We have never done things the normal way. We labour hard all the time to be strangely different. Nothing embarrasses us. The last time we had it so silly was in 2011. All efforts are geared to bring back our dirty and ugly history. We are stunned by the very few good aspects of our history. We wonder aloud how we come about those fine areas. We prefer a repeat of such uncommon bits of our past. We have a disdain for the good side of our history. We keep on cashing in on our failures. Glaringly, we are far from being prepared for future collapses and even trip-offs. We are forever confused. We are used to “fire brigade” approach. And this collapses as soon as it is put together. That is why we can be thinking of running our power grid on generators at this age. We are still in the Stone Age, groping aimlessly and endlessly in the dark. Our motto stoutly remains: No Vision, No Mission. But, for how long? As far as our “crude” strength can carry us. We have limited time!

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