For eight years, Nigeria hairdresser Damy Idowu ran her business in a commercial district of Lagos, surviving growing inflation, recession and the global pandemic.
Last week, she closed up shop, victim to soaring diesel costs and the country’s latest spate of prolonged power shortages.
Blackouts are common in Africa’s top petroleum producer, where dilapidated infrastructure often fails to distribute even insufficient electricity supplies. But extended collapses of the power grid over the last several weeks have combined with a global hike in diesel prices to create one of the country’s worst recent energy crises.—AFP
