This outage could not have come at a worse time, right in the middle of the hot season when basic comfort depends on working air conditioners and fans.

Since the early hours of June 15, SEEG customers have been unable to purchase EDAN units — the essential credits for powering their meters.

In an official statement, the company acknowledged a “computer glitch” that occurred during the night, without providing a precise timeline for normal service to resume, aside from a promise of an imminent fix according to multiple sources late in the day.

In the streets of the capital, many desperate subscribers made the trip to SEEG’s headquarters, located in the city centre, hoping for a miracle solution. But the counters remained silent.

“We have no reliable information. Everyone just has to wait until it’s fixed,” said Eric Ovono, a resigned customer, reflecting the general frustration amid the information blackout.

Jennifer Engouma, who usually buys her tickets at small agencies, hit a dead end. “They told me it’s a connection problem. So I went downtown to the headquarters, and here too there are no units. I’ve been without power for four days now. At night, we live with the mosquitoes,” she said, exhausted.

Marceline’s story is equally alarming. “It’s unbearable, especially with the heat! But we have no choice but to wait. I tried to pay via Airtel Money as usual, but it doesn’t go through. We get a message in English that proves the system is failing. Food is spoiling in the freezer,” she fumed, pointing out the irony of an error message written in a foreign language — a symbol of a system that has lost its bearings.

Beyond the simple technical glitch, it is SEEG’s digital infrastructure resilience that is once again being questioned.

In this era of forced digitalisation, where mobile payments and smart meters have become the norm, a single computer failure is enough to paralyse thousands of households, sending them back to outdated payment methods and passive waiting.

As night falls over Libreville, all eyes are on SEEG’s servers. Hope for a quick fix is on everyone’s lips, but for many, bitterness remains. The promise of reliable service has once again collided with the fragility of a system that, at the slightest jolt, plunges the capital into a troubling darkness.