At night, Nigeria’s commercial capital, Lagos, is a study in contrast. Half of this West African city’s homes are swathed in tropical darkness. The other half are lit by the city’s only reliable source of power – petrol and diesel generators.As it is in Lagos, so it is in the rest of the country. Across Nigeria, privately-owned generators serve as alternatives to the sputtering state electricity firm, the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN).“An estimated 60 million residents use generators of varying sizes. In the last year, average residential expenditure in fuelling power generators climbed to an all-time high of…
Joseph Adeye
Tertiary education is on life support by Adeyeye Joseph At a protest last July at the University of Ibadan in south-western Nigeria, a student brandished a placard that complained, “Education is dead in Nigeria.” The demonstrators were from Nigeria’s oldest university, founded in 1948. They had taken to the streets to demand an end to a lecturers’ strike that had grounded academic activities in all but two of Nigeria’s 78 public universities. The strike was in its third week when the protest took place. The message on the placard was both a plea for the lecturers to return to work,…
Nigeria: theft of development aid is a subset of broader corruption by Adeyeye Joseph When a major foreign funder of one of Nigeria’s biggest public health campaigns threatened to cut vital aid in November 2012, the country’s civil society knew it could be a telling, if not fatal, blow. In the preceding six years, the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria had splashed $474 million on health initiatives throughout Nigeria. But a value-for-grant audit carried out by the fund earlier in 2011 found that three out of its six Nigerian partners had misapplied or misappropriated $7 million in…
Terrorist group Boko Haram demands the adoption of sharia throughout Nigeria, though it has been practised in 12 Muslim-dominated states in the north since the fall of military rule in 1999. Is sharia as practised in Nigeria compatible with democracy and the protection of the rights of women and minorities? Ethnicity was Nigeria’s dominant fault line in the years after its independence from Great Britain in 1960. Religion played second fiddle. However, as the 20th century trundled to a close, religion gained ascendancy, becoming Nigeria’s dominant tinderbox. Ethnicity took a back seat. In the years preceding this change of baton,…
Nigeria is Africa’s second-largest economy with dreams of being its leader. Years of mismanagement and corruption have left it in the dark and stalled economic progress. When the lights go out, the generators kick in. Joseph Adeyeye spotlights Nigeria’s soaring demand for power, its shrinking and dilapidated infrastructure and the government’s poor planning. At night, Nigeria’s commercial capital, Lagos, is a study in contrast. Half of this West African city’s homes are swathed in tropical darkness. The other half are lit by the city’s only reliable source of power—petrol and diesel generators. As it is in Lagos, so it is…
Nigeria’s crumbling infrastructure Since the 1970s oil boom, the government has not maintained the country’s power stations, roads, railways and airports by Adeyeye Joseph Apapa, Nigeria’s busiest seaport, is a bustling complex of berthed ships, container yards and fuel depots in Lagos, the country’s commercial capital. A poorly maintained 27.5km road, which often floods, links this harbour to the rest of the West African nation. Trucks use this vital economic artery to freight imported goods from the Nigerian coast to the hinterland and return with cocoa beans, rubber and peanuts to export. But driving to and from this port means…
Nigeria: banks and other barriers to business High interest rates are strangling small businesses in Africa’s largest economy The elation in Nigeria at the news, released last April, that the country had overtaken South Africa as the continent’s largest economy, was largely confined to government circles. Many Nigerians have refused to get caught up in the excitement. Abiodun Ayinde, 69, who owns a small waste management company in Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city and economic capital, is one. Mr Ayinde does not care about the rivalry between Nigeria and South Africa. Topmost in his mind is the quest that has given…
