Industry blames Nigeria's power crisis for millions of lost jobs

0 Comments | AFP, June, 2008

KANO, Nigeria (AFP) — Chronic electricity shortages are largely to blame for the loss of three million jobs and the closure of hundreds of factories in northern Nigeria's commercial hub, local business leaders say.

"In the last 15 years, more than three million jobs have been directly and indirectly lost in Kano with the closure of more than two-thirds of our industries -- due mainly to power shortages," said Ahmed Rabiu, vice-president of the city's Chamber of Commerce.

"There were 500 industries in Kano in the mid-1990s, but more than 400 have since closed down and the workers left without a means of earning a living," he told AFP on Monday.

Nigeria has been grappling with a power crisis for almost two decades with its generating plants described as a...