Nigeria is naturally considered a hot country. When it becomes hotter than expected, one begins to read, 'God! It's so hot' as a newspaper headline. Interestingly, however, Nigerians in the United States of America are saying 'It is hotter than hell here,' concluding that the heat in Nigeria is nothing but a child's play. Ruth Olurounbi, who was in the USA, brings the report.GOING by the accounts of Nigerians living in the United States of America (USA), heat seasons experienced in Nigeria may be a child's play compared to what obtains during summer over there.Four months ago in Nigeria, a particular Saturday night in Ibadan, March 17, was described as a 'hellish day one may never pray to experience again,' as it was characterised as unbearable, given that the night's heat rose to as high as 41 degree Celsius. In some South West states of Nigeria, the hot weather was beyond scorching, not to mention the Northern states. But as scorching as the weather may be, Nigerians in the Diaspora have said heat in the country isn't as scalding or even deadly as it is in the US.Shola Abraham, a Nigerian who works in Washington DC, said temperatures in the district fluctuates between 40.5 and 45 degree Celsius. Those in St. Louis have been consistently plagued with heat soaring as high as 42.5 degree Celsius while those in Indianapolis are left panting under an unyielding 40 degree Celsius of temperature. Reports have it that a four-month-old girl died and a 16-month-old girl was hospitalised in suburban Indianapolis after both were found trapped in cars during a 40.5 degree Celsius heat on a Saturday.As if to corroborate their respective submissions, the Cable News Network (CNN) reported in its special feature that heat wave had been responsible for some 60 deaths in the space of two weeks. That, Benjamin Isaak, a Borno-bred resident in Miami said 'makes heat in Nigeria a joke compared to what actually happens in this place. The significant difference between the US and Nigeria is that US has a system that caters for these kinds of occurrence. But believe me, if this kind of heat or other natural disasters happening here do happen in Nigeria, the country may have been long ago forgotten.'With the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) reporting that June 2012 heat in the US raked in an average temperature of 71.2 degrees Fahrenheit 'two degrees above the 20th Century average,' in the statement by the EarthSky, Nigerians in the Diaspora may not have hit far from the mark. The state of Maryland at one point in June 2012 experienced a temperature as high as 100 degrees Celsius, while Virginia's temperature rose to 105 degree Celsius. Washington DC got the highest 120 degree F.Femi Oladapo, who works in the State of Maryland, said in his experience, 'there is no way on earth that even the hottest northern part of Nigeria could have been this hot. No way. Can you believe that a black person here gets sun-burn' Compared to Nigeria, the weather here is not only hot, it is humid combined. There is no escaping that. This is why it is mandatory that you have a central cooling system in your home, in the shopping malls and everywhere. Else, a lot of people here will die of heatstroke.'No fewer than 30 elderly deaths have been blamed on the scorching heat which has blanketed America. Nine people were reported dead in Maryland while 10 lost their lives to heat in Chicago. As if that was not enough, more people have been reportedly found dead in their homes due to an outage caused by rainstorm last week. Three of the elderly people found dead in their homes in Ohio had heart disease, but official cause of death was said to be high temperatures in homes lacking power due to the recent outages in some states of America.Ola Lawal, who lives in Virginia with his family, told the Nigerian Tribune that heat in Kwara State was nothing compared to what obtains in his state and other parts of the country he'd been to. He said 'during summer my family and I take vacations to some other parts of America and I can tell you this: this country is hot! What saves us most of the time are the cooling system and the sprinklers provided by the government. I can assure you that sweltering temperature in Nigeria may never cause roads to buckle or train to derail for that matter.But we have seen and heard reports of these things happening here,' he said.Testaments to the blistering power of heat in the US continued to be on the increase as reports continued to flood the international media last week that death toll had been on the increase. Cook County medical examiner's office in Chicago, last Sunday stated that eight more people died from heat-related causes in addition to the earlier confirmed 10 deaths on Saturday. The deaths included a 100-year-old woman, 65-year-old woman, a 53-year-old man, a 46-year-old woman and an unidentified man believed to be about 30 years old, Reuter stated.Aside Nigerians who described US heat as hell; other tourists described it as "hotter than hell.' Some of them told the Nigerian Tribune that the humidity 'is much worse. It is the killer. There are several episodes of dry air and that in itself is much worse than the heat.' Another described the humidity as being stuck in an airless room and being left to die.'Other residents said that apart from food prices which had soared thanks to the heat, electricity bills had also gone up 'a lot.' They said that might be because they consumed more electricity because their air conditioners had to be kept up all night.Last week Sunday, Shade Aborishade told Nigerian Tribune during a phone conversation that it was a steamy 80-plus degree in New York City, where she lives with her family. A Chicago resident, Michelle Austin, a Nigerian born in the US however told Nigerian Tribune that whenever she visited Nigeria, she had problems coping with heat as against the US where there were coping mechanisms put in place. She told the Nigerian Tribune that she believed that the heat in the US was better coped with than that of Nigeria. Some other Nigerians insisted that Nigerian heat was much more than the US's. Just last month, the CNN reported that record-high temperatures which had continued to cause heat wave and deadly storms in America, saying thousands of people had been affected by the power outage when a deadly heat-driven storm hit the eastern part of the country. The situation with power outage was described in the US as the worst outage on record with millions of residents living in extreme heat and without power. The worst hit areas were West Virginia, South Dakota, Iowa and Nebraska.
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