Nigeria, Jan. 21 -- For close to two decades, communities along the Mowe-Ibafo axis lived in enforced darkness, completely cut off from the national electricity grid. Neighbourhoods such as Mowe, Ibafo, Arepo, Magboro, Asese, Loburo, and particularly surveyor axis of a community called pakuro, and the ever-expanding constellation of estates around them bore the brunt of this prolonged neglect. Power was not unreliable; it was nonexistent. Homes, schools, clinics, churches, mosques and small businesses survived on generators, candles and sheer endurance, while official promises of grid connection came and went with election cycles. Darkness was the only constant.

That long blackout was not an accident of geography or population size. The...