By Victor Kanayo
Power outage has now become a reoccurring incident in the ongoing 13th African Games at Ghana.
Heritage Times HT reports that within three days, the power cut has embarrassingly occurred four times in different cities and sports centres within the West African nation.
There was also a blackout incident which happened even before the official kick-off of the competition on Friday.
Timelines of Power Outages Within Three Days
The first occured three days ago when Nigeria’s Flying Eagles played Uganda in their first group match of the ongoing sporting events.
Nigeria ended losing the match with some part of the televised game played under darkness as spectators put on their phone torchlight.
Just before Kick-off of the opening ceremony on Friday March 8, 2024, power supply tripped off at the Games Village.
The Games village (inside University of Ghana) is where majority of contingents – comprising of athletes and officials from over 50 countries are camped.
It was also where the University of Ghana’s sports complex which hosted the official opening ceremony of the competition is located at an area in Accra known as Legon.
As if the blackout situation wasn’t enough, lights also went off twice in Ghana’s opening game of the women’s football event against Ethiopia at the Cape Coast Stadium on Saturday night.
READ ALSO: Nigeria: NCDMB Lauds President Tinubu Oil Sector’s Executive Orders For Reinforcing NOGICD Act, SLA
Shamefully, the spectators were again forced to put on their phone light.
The first power outage occurred in the 36th minute of the match.
After a delay of nearly 20 minutes, power was restored, only for it to go off again just before halftime.
Ghana’s Black Princesses later emerged 1-0 victorious over Ethiopia at the end of the match on Saturday.
Ghana is scheduled to face Tanzania next before concluding their group stage matches against Uganda.
Authorities Appearing Awake After Occurrences
The incidents of power outages during the game have prompted authorities to investigate the cause.
Given that the game was televised, the interruptions cast a negative light on the country and its infrastructure.
The games are expected to end on March 23.
