Port Harcourt: Fathers Celebrate Father’s Day With Out Power
By PHC Telegraph
Most fathers who celebrated father’s day in Port Harcourt and its environs on Sunday, except for those who own private energy sources, did so in their homes without public power supply.
Fathers who were honoured in their various churches returned to their homes after prayer hours without access to electricity.
Mike, a father of four, who said his family was disturbed about the light situation in the State noted, “I haven’t had the opportunity of sharing a cold drink with my family and my wife is worried stiff that the edibles in our freezer and fridge would get bad if the situation persists.”
“This year, I got several gifts from my children”, said a father who did not want his name in print, “but PHED spoilt my groove. They took everything from me, including the spirit of celebration .”
Equally pained are those fathers whose generators suddenly developed faults. Some who spoke to this medium say they didn’t have a happy father’s day.
“How can I say I had a Happy Father’s Day when PHED and my generator conspired to deny me of light”, Iboroma asked.
“On a day I thought my generator would stand in the gap for me, I was terribly disappointed”, he added, “Truly nothing works in this country no matter how hard you try.”
Although there are parts of the State which has not seen light for months such as Igwuruta and Igboh Etche and places around Ada George that have not seen power supply for weeks, a major power outage occurred early Sunday morning, plunging the entire city into darkness.
At the Trans Amadi Industrial Layout which is the business district of the Garden City, the powerlines which take electric supply to homes and industries went dead about 06.00 hours in the morning.
As at the time of this report, power supply had not been restored even though a staff of PHED assured that the organisation is doing everything possible to ensure its customers enjoy the service.
We have learnt through sources at PHED that power supply was disrupted by “gas imbalance”, meaning that gas was not sufficient to power distribution facilities that feed the powerlines.
We have learnt that PHED’s field staff worked most of Sunday at Alaoji in an effort to fix the problem which has left most families without access to news and information, cooling facilities on the home front and the comfort that only power supply can give.
An insider told this publication that public power supply would return Sunday night.
“We hope to get it up”, an engineering staff hinted the Telegraph, “all things being equal power supply shall be restored this night.”
As at the time of filing this report, Telegraph’s energy Correspondent who was monitoring the situation reports that power supply returned to parts of Port Harcourt city around 10.40pm.