In Bonny Island, Valentine’s Day 2024 will be marked in utter darkness as the Bonny Utility Company (BUC) has announced a full blown power outage for the whole day.

BUC is the firm responsible for electricity distribution and water supply in Bonny Island, Rivers State.

In a statement tagged “NOTICE OF PLANNED POWER OUTAGE ON WEDNESDAY 14TH FEBRUARY 2024” it posted on its Facebook, the BUC said the shutdown was a demonstration of its commitment to serve residents of Bonny better.

The company further said that the shutdown was due to a major maintenance work at the injection station inside Shell Nigeria’s Bonny Oil and Gas Terminal (BOGT) thus necessitating the shutdown of two feeders between the hours of 9am and 4pm.

“As a result of the serious and major maintenance work commencing on Wednesday 14th February 2024 in the shell injection station, please be notified that the NLNG FEEDER AND THE SPDC FEEDER will be shutting down, from 9:00am – 4:00pm enabling the team to successfully and safely embark on that maintenance exercise, as we promise that normalcy will return immediately after the successful completion of the work.”

This imminent outage, which residents view as a sign of a seriously aggravating situation, follows closely that of Sunday, February 11, 2024, that saw several parts of the community in darkness during the Finals of the African Cup of Nations (AFCON).

For an island that residents have become helplessly dependent on constant electricity for years, it was a sad option for many of them to resort to watching the all-important match at viewing centres, churches, among other places where alternative power sources were being used.

Businesses already stand threatened with many business owners lamenting the huge loss in revenue owing to the incessant outages, saying this particular one that would last a whole day is a difficult one given the current state of the nation’s economy.

A lady, who simply identified herself as Dabota, said “my perishable goods would obviously get spoilt that day. Imagine a whole day without light! How do I manage with my children?”

A trader at the Bonny Ultra-Modern Market, who preferred anonymity due to his position in the market association, wondered the level of insensitivity of the BUC, regretting that he alongside his fellow traders in the market have been suffering losses due to the incessant power outages,   

“There is no day they don’t take the light and they don’t mind that we have no other option of light except their own. Are we now going to be buying generators in this market?”

An official of the BUC, who preferred to speak anonymously, explained that the power outages were due to serious issues the company is grappling with, assuring that the situation would soon be sorted out.

For Freedom Israel, a staff of one of the Train 7 companies, he has decided to introduce the sale of generators in the Island, hinting Kristina Reports that “my cousin is a dealer in various brands of alternative power sources and I’ve told him that Bonny is now a huge market”.

“I have advised him and he has agreed to bring in generators, inverters, solar panels in their numbers for would-be clients. There is no need for residents of Bonny Island to held to ransom by BUC. They can salvage their destiny by opting for other sources of power.”  

Other respondents to Kristina Reports enquiry among the business community lamented that on February 14, eateries, restaurants, hotels, bars, and other recreational places in Bonny Island would lose massive patronage due to this shutdown which they described as “very insensitive” and “an attack on businesses”.