It has been described as one of the oddest moments in Super Bowl history. Yesterday, the unexpected happened when one of America’s most important sports events was marred by a power failure that lasted for over half an hour. About 90 seconds into the second half of this year’s Super Bowl XLVII played in New Orleans, the lights on one half of the Superdome’s roof suddenly went out. Internet connections in the press box were cut, and the scoreboards went dark.

“Many of the 71,024 fans started murmuring,” says a New York Times report. “The public-address announcer made several muffled statements about the power failure.”

Though power did not go out elsewhere in the city, the roughly 35-minute power failure has remained a talking point, including among Nigerians in the USA, whom it reminded of life in their country of origin, where power failure is a way of life.

“They stopped the Ravens momentum with the 35 minutes’ game delay. NEPA is too much ooo. They hit America’s Super Bowl? Lights out in the Superdome! How did that happen?,” wrote Chukwudi Nwokoye on his FB wall.

News Express reports that NEPA stands for National Electric Power Authority and remains the name known by the older generation of Nigerians even though the name has since been changed to Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN).

Commenting on the Super Bowl power outage, Fubara David-West, another US-based Nigerian, wrote: “Why can’t President Obama just say, ‘let there be light?’ In Nigeria, he would be called clueless for this. There are great lessons for Nigerians to learn from this event.”

The Baltimore Ravens were ahead, 28-6, when the lights went out and eventually won 34-31 after withstanding a determined second-half comeback by the San Francisco 49ers. It was, in a way, a victory for Nigeria as three Nigerians, namely, James Ihedigbo, Kelechi Osemele and Brendon Ayanbadejo, are key members of the Ravens and all played in yesterday’s final.

•Photo, courtesy New York Times: A security guard Sunday during the power failure at the Super Dome in New Orleans, with the emergency lights on.

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