National Electric Power Authority, NEPA used to be the national parastatal in charge of electricity generation, marketing and distribution. We now have new players carrying out those functions but ‘UP NEPA’ is not likely to leave our lexicon soon.

So many homes and offices have had their equipment and machines converted to antiques and monuments by high voltage, power surges and power outages from NEPA.

Does any of our home and office NEPA-made antique compare in value to the multi-million-naira ball of steel, which NEPA unwittingly created inside the furnace of Delta Steel Plant, built at the whopping cost of N1.6billion in 1982?

Here is what happened. The Steel Plant was trying to forge liquefied steel into billets for sale. So over 20 tonnes of liquefied steel were placed in the furnace for that purpose. Unfortunately, NEPA interrupted the process when suddenly there was a power outage. The molten steel which could not be removed from the furnace then became solidified into a huge ball of steel. NEPA’s action not only created the ball of steel, it also badly affected the operation of three of the four blast furnaces.