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Business Daily: Nigeria , business and blackouts

10/06/2010

Nigeria , business and blackouts

BBC World Service - Business Daily, Nigeria , business and blackouts

What do people in Lagos do when the power supply and the traffic fails them?

In Lagos, Nigeria's commercial hub, people have to contend daily with the ongoing problems of poor infrastructure - bad roads and electricity shortages. What do Nigerians do when those systems fail?

Steve Evans is in the mega city of Lagos, Nigeria's commercial hub, where the BBC bus travelling through West Africa has finally ended up. 

For this edition of Business Daily he takes a look at infrastructure - roads and electricity - and also at the ingenuity of people when those systems fail. What happens when the electricity stops, which it does very frequently indeed? If it's not the snarl of traffic the typical sound of Lagos is the electricity generator. Outside pretty well every establishment, apart from the homes of the poor, there is a chuntering machine guzzling diesel and petrol in return for delivering electricity when the state supply fails. When the lights go out, generators go on - and they are expensive. 

Everybody seems to blame the government. 

Nigeria has had civilian rule for only a little over a decade and only in May 2007 did one civilian succeed another civilian as president. The first time since independence from Britain in 1960. All the same the transition to civilian rule and promises of reform from the president Goodluck Jonathan seemed to raise hopes that change may be on the way.

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