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When Shagari first took office, Nigeria was riding the crest of the oil boom. Its wells were producing up to $26 billion a year. The affluence led the government to press ahead with several expensive development projects, including the construction of a new capital city at Abuja, 325 miles to the northeast of Lagos. Shagari initially promised an end to corruption, but he soon learned that his room for maneuver was limited by the narrower aims of the northern political barons, whose support had ensured his election. Fueled by the oil boom, corruption flourished. Explains a newspaper editor...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: The Light That Failed: Nigeria | 1/16/1984 | See Source »

Alas, by 1983, Nigeria was suffering from the worldwide oil glut and the resulting drop in prices. Its oil revenues had fallen to about $10 billion a year, while its foreign debt rose to an estimated $15 billion. After his reelection, Shagari seemed determined to deal more forcefully with corruption and the growing economic problems than he had before. He created a new ministry charged with rooting out corrupt officials. Just two days before the coup, he delivered an austerity budget aimed at reducing the government's capital spending by 30% and imports by 40%. The belt-tightening was greeted...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: The Light That Failed: Nigeria | 1/16/1984 | See Source »

...heads the new government, General Buhari, is a figure to be reckoned with. During the previous military government, he served as Nigeria's Oil Minister and before that as governor of Borno state. He attended the British Officers' Cadet School at Aldershot, near London, and the U.S. Army War College at Carlisle Barracks, Pa. Like Shagari, he is both a Muslim from the north and a political moderate...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: The Light That Failed: Nigeria | 1/16/1984 | See Source »

Buhari moved swiftly to reassure both his countrymen and foreign governments of his junta's intentions. He declared that the 1983 elections had been "anything but free and fair" and complained that the Shagari government was turning Nigeria into "a nation of beggars." He stressed that people were worried about the rising prices of such basic foods as rice, sugar, yams and tomatoes, and pointed out that many civil servants had not been paid for months. "The armed forces could not stand idly by," he said, "while the country was drifting toward a dangerous state of political and economic collapse...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: The Light That Failed: Nigeria | 1/16/1984 | See Source »

Three days after it seized power, the military council made a payment of about $60 million that Nigeria owed to 66 international banks on debts of nearly $2 billion. In the meantime, said Buhari, Nigeria would continue to negotiate with the International Monetary Fund for some $2 billion in emergency loans. Buhari also announced that Nigeria would remain in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, and that it would not cut its oil prices sharply in an effort to find a short-term solution to its pressing economic problems. This was good news to other members of OPEC...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: The Light That Failed: Nigeria | 1/16/1984 | See Source »

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