Word: nigerians
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...hours to buy gasoline -- and then must bribe the attendant to fill the tank. Propane for cooking is so scarce and expensive that city dwellers are scrambling for firewood or electric teakettles to boil their drinking water, provided the water is actually running and the erratic Nigerian Electric Power Authority is having one of its rare good days. "If things keep on as they are," says Joseph Garba, a former Foreign Minister, "Nigeria will go back to the Stone...
Determined to prove the new government cannot rule, the Campaign for Democracy, a human-rights group leading the opposition, brought the boisterous city of Lagos (pop. 6 million) to a standstill for the second time in three weeks by calling a stay-at-home protest. The Nigerian Labor Congress announced a general strike by its 4 million members, including oilworkers, starting Saturday. Both groups say they will keep demonstrating until Abiola, who vowed to return to Lagos this week and begin consultations to form a new government, is sworn in as President...
...many Nigerians what is really at stake is not whether Abiola takes office, but whether they will ever have a country they can be proud of. Democracy advocates detest Babangida and the other soldiers -- who have ruled the country for 23 of its 33 years of independence -- for diminishing the Nigerian soul. Endemic corruption; the narrowing opportunities in the country that once held out so much promise; the exploitation of bitter rivalries among the three largest ethnic groups, the Yoruba, Ibo and Hausa-Fulani -- all have sapped the nation's resources, its cohesion, its confidence. Instead of building a nation...
...damage is most evident among Nigeria's battered middle class, the true believers in the Nigerian Dream. To survive these days, they are more likely to make deals than make things. Young Amie, a 34-year-old Yoruba who graduated from the University of Lagos with a degree in chemistry, was fired from his job at a grain-milling factory after the government banned imported wheat. Unable to find another post related to his training, he began importing "fairly used cars," as Nigerians call preowned automobiles. "The country would be better off if I were to engage in the production...
...Many Nigerians who once brandished their nationality as a badge of honor now feel only shame. Those who travel abroad are shocked to learn that foreign customs officers regard all Nigerian travelers as potential drug couriers. Some foreign countries, including the U.S., have been quietly warning businessmen to beware of scams in which executives are lured to Nigeria by the promise of rich contracts, only to be kidnapped and held for ransom...