PUNCH
DENNIS NAKU and CHIKA OTUCHIKERE write on a protest by some women in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, over their husbands’ inability to the sleep with them due to epileptic power supply, and the agitation led by some market women and youths in Minna, Niger State, over the rising food prices and hardship
Whatever prompted scores of women in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, to take to the streets to protest on Tuesday was no doubt serious. Similarly, any circumstance that could make a couple less inclined to perform an important marital obligation cannot be less serious.
The women, mostly married, stormed the office of the Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company near the Isaac Adaka Boro Park in Port Harcourt to protest the poor power supply which they claimed had taken a toll on activities in the ‘other room’.
The angry women came from the Mile 2 and Mile 3 axis of Diobu, a densely populated area in the state capital with poor urban planning. Checks showed that most of the residential buildings in the area lacked adequate ventilation.
Speaking to our correspondent, one of them, who gave her name as Chinasa, described the situation as tiring.
The mother of two said, “I stay on Dim Street. This matter don tire me. I’m a married woman with two kids and I want to complete am three, but no opportunity. When you want to touch oga him go complain say heat too much.
“Na that side be my problem o because I don’t want another woman collect my husband. That is why we are telling the government and PHED to help us.
She lamented that many men in the affected areas had been forced to remain outside and not return home to their wives due to the unbearable heat.
“They (husbands) go want to do their thing outside. Then when they return late and you touch them, they will tell you to give them space. If you touch them again, they will tell you to move because the heat is too much. I cannot take it.
“That is why we are calling on the PHED and government to help give us light, especially because we pay our bills every month.”
When our correspondent asked her why the emphasis was on intercourse, Chinasa said, “Yes, it is because that one is my field and I don’t want my husband to go outside. When he goes to work and returns at night, that (intercourse) is what I use to make him happy; that was why I said the lack of it is my problem.
However, another protester, Mercy, who said she was single, said she accompanied her neighbours to protest because she suffered the impact of the power outage.
“For over two weeks now, there has been no power and we have paid our bills. I’m a single lady but the married women are my friends and neighbours. They have been complaining that their husbands no longer touch them because of the heat.
