Married women in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, staged a peaceful protest on Tuesday against the prolonged power outage in some parts of the state capital, prompting their husbands to avoid having romance with them at night due to the excruciating heat.

The protesting women drawn from the Mile 2 and Mile 3 axes of the densely populated Diobu settlement barricaded the office of the Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company, PHED, near the popular Isaac Boro Park in Port Harcourt, lamenting that their husbands have refused to have sex with them at night due to intense heat waves caused by the power outage.

The placard-carrying protesters marched through major streets in Diobu, including Wokoma, Dim, Wokoma Lane, Obaziolu, Dim Lane, Egbuagu, Azikiwe, and Ojoto Streets, before heading to the PHED office to make their anger known.

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On the placards were different inscriptions like: “We lack romance with our husbands’, ‘Our husbands no longer touch us at night’, no light, no payment’, ‘The heat is too much,’ ‘PHED help us to sleep well with our husbands’, and many more.

The angry women said that they also find it difficult to preserve cooked foods for weeks, pointing out that their businesses have been grounded due to alleged poor power supply by the Port Harcourt distribution firm.

According to them, the most affected areas include Dim, Wokama, Azikiwe, Ojoto streets, Rainbow, Amadi, and Abuloms, among others, adding that they pay light bills monthly without a corresponding power supply.

“This lack of light (electricity) is making our soup sour. Even when our husbands want to make love to us, the heat will not allow it. We can’t even charge our phones or preserve our food. We are worried,” one of the women who will not want her name printed said.

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“This protest is for PHED to give us light. We are paying bills but not seeing light. Our pot of soup is getting bad, and even having sex with our husbands is a problem because of the heat.

“Last night, my husband wanted to have fun with me, but the heat was too much; I could not. We could not do anything. So PHED should give us light, or else we will not pay the bill for this month.”

The public relations officer with the PEHD, Livingstone Koko, was quoted as saying that the current power situation was beyond the control of the company, saying it was a value change issue.

“It is a value chain constraint. It is beyond our control. However, we also share their sentiments and try to let them know that we are working with other players in the industry to ensure that supply is restored.

“It is nothing short of what is being experienced around the country. So we are aware of the challenge, and we apologise and ask them to bear with us.”