The Diary Game: 22/11/2022 | Experiencing Issues with Prepaid Meters

Introduction

It's another day with different activities lined up which are quite notably different from the previous day, I didn't fail to pen those down and I would be sharing them via the diary game. I hope to have you on this till the end.

The Diary Game

We are deep into the dry season here and it's now hotter than it was in the previous months, and it's an all-day condition. Even though it rains seldomly, yet the heat has been the order of the day. This morning wasn't an exception, it began as another hot day.

Over the last few days, the pressing issue around here was about the power bills for the 24 flats here in the compound I reside. At inception, we are not given a prepaid meter (not even a digital one) as such, the power company in my town charges the house 105,000 NGN monthly, of course, we fought on that but based on the dispute on the house, we can only do little.

The power company installed two prepaid meters in the compound last week and this number is not just little as compared to what should be given here, we need more than that.

In addition, it's established that previous power debts on a house are always placed on the new prepaid meters. We have been charged 1,050,000 NGN for the 10 months we have spent here while we have only paid around 200,000 NGN, as such we are visiting the company's today to see how things play out (at least know how the debt would be paid back).

_{One of the monitor units designated to my flat}

I spent the morning studying and trading on an exchange and at 11:00, I enjoyed the Fifa World Cup match between Argentina and Saudi Arabia, in the ongoing event in Qatar. It was an interesting game and the Saudi side with courage triumphed 2-1 (what a game with disallowed goals, many offside moments, impressive defense, and so on).

It's 14:00 and my neighbors came around so that we can step out to the power company to buy some power units and complain about the meters which are too little for the house. It was a hot afternoon with around 34^oC on average as seen below.

_{The Temperature in Osogbo around 14:00 | Source: TimeAndDate}

The experience at the power company wasn't a good one, out of the money we contributed for the purchase of the units, about 65% was deducted to pay back some of our debts while only 35% of the funds gives us little units. It's a disheartening one, most of the guys that used the power back then are NYSC members who have left after the service year.

I got back around 16:00, and had a cold shower when one of the neighbors called me that he had disconnected the water pumping machine because we have little resources now and we may just to resolve to manually fetch water from the well, for the next few days. It was around 17:30 when a message came in to notify me about the arrival of some stuff I ordered from Jumia and I stepped out again to get the stuff at a pickup station.

A Jumia Pickup station in an old complex	Goods awaiting pick up

I got my packages (they are just a pair of sports wears) and they were in good shape, from there, I left for the mall where I got stuff like toothpaste and a brush, bread from the mall's bakery, and some drinks. It's already dark at this time.

Justrite Superstore	Toothpaste section	The drinks section just around the payment counter

_{A Selfie inside the Mall}

I returned to my residence around 20:10, the France vs Australia match was ongoing at that time. I had another cold bath, you can't be experiencing a high temperature like this without bathing multiple times in a day. I had my dinner which was bread and spread and watched the football match which ended 4-1 victory in favor of France.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it was a hot day and I managed to join some of my neighbors to get to understand a pressing issue on our newly installed prepared meters which has put all of us in distress, most especially, paying excessive debt on our recharges. This has affected us in some ways as some loads are gradually being removed from the meter so that we can manage whatever we get from our purchases, it's going to be a hard one. It was a stressful day for me, no doubt. Thanks for reading today.