The lights are out all over oil-rich Nigeria

Nigeria is rich in oil but short of energy, and at night the lights are out and darkness reigns for most of the 140 million inhabitants.

Hundreds of small and medium-scale businesses are being strangled by an almost total lack of power in a country which is the sixth-biggest exporter of oil in the world.


President Olusegun Obasanjo, on assuming office in May 1999, promised to put an end to the perennial energy crisis.

His probable successor, Umaru Yar’Adua, says the same, but louder, insisting that if elected in April, he would declare a national “energy state of emergency.”

AFP