Nigerian students on the power outages.
Three Nigerian students describe what a shortage of electricity actually does to a semester: not an inconvenience, but a timetable for when you are allowed to cook, wash, read and charge a phone.
The framing is not abstract for any of them. “It has affected me in all ways: reading, eating, sleeping, cooking, watching, doing assignment and project,” the first says. “You have to create a timetable for how you cook, how you fetch water. Everything is not your convenience again.”
Then the line that reframes the whole thing: “It is like an opportunity, not a convenient thing you do for yourself. It’s no longer a means of life. It’s now a survival mode.”
A second is thinking about deadlines. “It has affected me a lot in terms of my projects, delayed projects and also trying to meet deadlines. It has always been a lot for me, but I just hope that things get better.”
The third goes at exam season directly. “Looking at exam periods, we actually need light a lot. I remember last semester, I wake up in the midnight and then there’s no light. It doesn’t motivate me to read sometimes.” He ends without letting the country off and without letting it stand: “I understand the situation of the country, but I believe that as students we deserve more.”
Filmed by Gift for a weekly We Them Media and poidh bounty, where contributors go out and put one question to people where they live.