Surviving Nigeria’s Power Outages: My Frustration with a Swollen Power Bank

Hello Everyone,

Let me start by expressing my dissatisfaction with Nigeria's power system.

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Electricity has been one of the big challenges faced in Nigeria, even till this day, and we are not seeing any improvement in the power system.

In fact, in 2024 it was reported by The Nation newspapers that the Nigeria power grid gap failed 12 times.

• The first major failure occurred on February 4, 2024 keeping many Nigeria regions in darkness.
• A second failure occurred on March 28, 2024, which led to a call for urgent reformation of Nigeria's grid management.
• A third failure occurred on April 15, 2024, as a result of a power cut, which affected some key cities and industrial zones.
• On July 6, 2024, the grid failed again, marking the fourth critical disruption in a year, causing public frustration.
• As if it was not enough, on October 14 and 15, 2024, the nation was in total blackout.
• Things continued getting worse, in the month of November 2024, the national grid experienced multiple blackouts. The first was on 5th while the second occurred on 7th. This marks the 10th and 11th occurrences.
• The twelfth collapse occurred on December 11, 2024, indicating the persistent challenge Nigeria's power sector is facing.

It has become a common topic of discussion and Nigerians are getting used to the system. I said so because most Nigerians, understanding how the system works, rely on generating their own power. Residential generators are one major source. In most Nigerian cities, you'll not pass two households without hearing the sound of a generator, the same applies to major commercial centers in Nigeria.
In fact, 80% if not 90% of people rely on power banks as an alternative source of power to keep their phones charged, and i am no exception.

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I am a heavy phone user so i thought of ways to keep my phone charged, and i saw the need for a power bank. I thought of the best brand to buy from. Since i had seen most people using Oraimo power banks, so i went for it. I visited their website and saw a variety of power banks with different capacities. Since I am someone that does not aim for little, i went for the highest capacity available at the moment. I ordered it from their website and it took four days to reach my destination. It was payed on delivery.

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As i was using it, i noticed a little swell occurring but i thought my eyes were deceiving me as i asked my friend if he noticed anything about the power bank but he said no. As time goes on, it became increasingly clear and obvious that the power bank is swelling up. It was just less than a year.

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I visited Oraimo website and expressed my disappointment in the review page. I could have rated 3 stars anyway.

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I thought of a way to prevent it from further swelling so i wrapped it very tightly with tape. It was as if the swell stopped for some time but i didn't know that the swell was damaging the Powerbank within until it stopped working.

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Now, I'm left with no choice than to buy a new one.