I'm not the best person to respond to this question as it appears to be directed to people with poor power supply in their area or so it seems. I made this inference because of the second half of the question; how can it be made better?”
The power supply in my area is nothing short of fantastic. If the power supply is cut off, it takes less than thirty minutes to be restored. One can tell the people living in my area apart from others because a good number of us do not own power banks and those that own one, keep them as furniture. The power supply is stable to the point where I could have a low battery and still be rest assured that my phone wouldn't go completely off because well, there's light.
A number of my friends and acquaintances never want to hear that I have a low battery because “there's always light in your area” except during the period when the national grid falls; which feels like this occurs bimonthly now.
But, it never used to be this way. Our power supply never used to be stable. During this period, the millionaires in the community were those who owned device charging places because there were always people willing to charge something at every point of the day. We only encountered power supply once in a blue mood and I remember how frantic the community would be during this short period. Everyone would be scurrying to get as many things done: Pump water, fill the drums and jericans with water, do the laundry, blend and store all kitchen items that need blending, iron all the clothes for the week, and the list goes on. It was always a hectic race.
The annoying part is that there were a few youngsters at the time who took delight in stealing and selling electric cables, because they deemed the cables as useless. On the other hand, there were a good number of people who would make a fuss about paying their electric bills and due to such an act, they marked the people in my area unworthy of power supply.
On one of those days when we hadn't gotten even a spark of light for over a month, a few elders in the community gathered and made the decision to visit the PHCN office closest to us. They had it in mind to talk peacefully on arrival but news that got out is they threatened the officials and these threats were not mere blank threats. It was really hilarious news at the time because the rest of the people who didn't go to the office couldn't verify the legitimacy of the news and neither did these elders come out to explicitly deny ever going such.
Whatever they did or said that day at the office, whatever agreement they came to actually worked. The power supply was restored that very day and didn't blink for over six months. This of course felt like luxury because we moved from a community struggling with power supply, to a community where every outsider vied to live in. The interesting part of it is that this area is in no way a Government Reserved Area(GRA) but we enjoy many benefits fit for government reserved areas.
At the time, I had no mobile device and the only thing I did using the constant power supply was straighten my clothes and watch a ton of movies. I almost became a couch potato.
Over the years, the power supply in the area has been relatively stable with only a few glitches along the line. A good number of people have adopted the use of prepaid metres and this has helped to curb the incessant rants about how the PHCN keeps inflating the prices of power supply bills. Those who didn't adopt the use of prepaid meters still use the old billing system and everyone is at peace.
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