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 LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) - 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.
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