Up NEPA: A Tale of Light & Darkness

It was late in the evening around seven or eight. We hurdled around the warm embrace of the dimly lit kerosene lantern in the centre of the living room talking and laughing. A light plume of smoke billowed from the lantern’s air vent just above the flickering yellow glow of the flame which was encased in the cylindrical shaped glass tube. We did this every evening, in fact it had become routine by now.

Turn back a few hours earlier that same day about two or three pm. The sun shone in the mid-day sky and it was about 30 degrees outside. The lanterns were in a closet somewhere as their services were not yet required. I am in the living room laying on a couch a few metres from the television set. The remote firmly grasped in my right hand. You see, in my house the person who held the remote was the king of the TV, and I was not going to let go of my crown so easily.

My elder sister was watching from the bar which was a room adjacent to the living room. The bar was not really a bar in the true sense of it. It was a room with a dining table at the centre and just beside that was a white counter top with two mirrors on opposite ends. Behind the counter where shelfs nailed to the wall which were originally intended for drinks but now just contained old books, photographs and some unwanted papers.

 My younger brother was upstairs sitting in front of the PlayStation, legs crossed and eyes glued to the television as he pressed the buttons of his controller furiously. An army of men could have swarmed the room ready for war but it would have made no difference as he was lost in the virtual world of FIFA.

Our collective days would have gone on without  a hitch as the sun began to set and the orange glow of dusk gave way to the crisp blue evening except for the shock that was about to rock our worlds. Sometime that evening, around half past six, while I was in the middle of my television programme lying on my side across the living room floor with one leg crossed above the other in a sort of V shape. I had come off from the couch to lie on the floor due to the pain I had begun to feel from staying in one position for about an hour.  

Suddenly, darkness crept over the entire house. From the living room to the bar to the rooms upstairs, all had been swallowed up by a shadow that seemed to creep in from the black night and steal the light from our eyes. The television had gone off with a ‘pew’ sound like a futuristic laser from a sci-fi movie. The sounds of cricket mating calls began to rise from outside as the television could no longer drown them out. From upstairs my brother began to leap and bound the staircase coming down as though to deliver an important message from on high. As he reached the living room with one last leap from the pen ultimate staircase he yelled from the top of his lungs what we had all known “NEPA! They’ve taken light!”

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Growing up in a country were power generation was poor to say the least had its advantages. Unlike most European countries were power supply is constant; growing up in Nigeria forced us to live with both the light and the darkness.  With the light came television, video games and all forms of entertainment that separated us and made us retreat into our own worlds. But with the darkness came stories around the lanterns, laughter and time spent with family.

As with everything concerning Nigeria, what at first seemed dark, if you look deep enough you can see the real beauty that lies untapped beneath. The true ‘light’ is always revealed to those who look beyond the darkness.