Corruption Leaves Nigeria in the Dark

Deji Medi, 27, operates a decades-old printing press in Lagos, Nigeria Wednesday Feb. 7, 2007. Nigeria claims ownership of one of the world's great energy reserves, but corruption and mismanagement leave Africa's oil giant chronically short of electricity. Businesses and walled residential compounds run costly diesel generators, while the vast majority of Nigeria's 140 million people live their lives in near-perpetual gloom. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba) (Sunday Alamba - AP)

LAGOS, Nigeria -- Day and night, a mechanical roar shakes Nigeria's main city and exhaust hangs in the leaden equatorial skies. But it's not evidence of heavy industry or a mechanized army division advancing on Lagos. With corruption and mismanagement leaving Africa's oil giant chronically short of electricity, businesses and walled residential compounds run diesel generators that clatter around the clock, spewing dirty fumes skyward.

For the vast majority of Nigeria's 140 million people who don't have the means to provide their own juice, that means added din and filth and lives in near-perpetual gloom, illuminated only when the power grid flickers on.

"This situation is very, very unfortunate. We have so many natural and human resources. If we could just develop them, Nigeria should be very powerful," said Marcus Eruaga, a 55-year-old doctor in a Lagos clinic with darkened operating room and dormant X-ray machines.

"Nigerians are very ingenious. If you give an artisan light, he'll be successful," said the doctor, who switches on the generator when patients come for treatment. "People want to work."

In the markets of Lagos, Africa's biggest city with a population of 14 million, people are getting along as well as they can.

Tailors hunch over foot-pedaled sewing machines, their knees pistoning as their fingers ease fabric beneath a flashing needle. Knives are sharpened on hand-spun grinding stones. Children study near open windows, while inside concrete hovels, wicks smoke in pots of kerosene.

The power failures _ called "lights out" _ come frequently and unpredictably. Even jobs that don't need electricity can be onerous, without fans or air conditioners in noontime temperatures nearing 100 degrees.

Despite low labor costs, Nigeria has little manufacturing due to the high price of energy, among other factors.

Across Lagos, Nigerians blame their notoriously corrupt government for the electricity problems, saying their leaders steal funds earmarked for the country's generators.

The government acknowledges problems and says it's increasing generating capacity, but maintains nonpayment of bills, pilfering of power lines and tapping of fuel pipelines are also contributing factors.

In 1979, Nigeria had 79 generating stations. Twenty years later, after a series of ruinous military governments, only 15 were working, producing 1,500 megawatts of power. The government hopes to increase that nearly 100-fold within 25 years.

Under President Olusegun Obasanjo, who was elected in 1999, the government is seeking to privatize the state-run power company, the National Electric Production Authority _ known as NEPA. Nigerians joke that NEPA actually stands for "Never-Ever Power Always" and say reforms under Obasanjo haven't come rapidly enough.