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Article: Call of the conscience; As circumstances focus Western eyes on Africa, American visitors find the place less a mystery than they expected. Heartbreak is a fixture of the landscape, but so is hope. Africa's preposterous burdens oblige the world's comfortable to forsake the luxury of lamentation and join in imagining Africa's future.(NEWS)
- Article from:
- Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN)
- Article date:
- October 1, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 Star Tribune Co. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The lights have gone out again in Lagos, but you don't even blink.
Your Nigerian friends have already explained: At NEPA, PLC - the National Electric Power Authority - blackouts come free with the service. Hence the joke: NEPA, PLC, the locals say, stands for "Never Expect Power Always, Please Light Candles."
This, you have come to understand, is Nigeria. A land of light humor and recurring darkness. The richest nation in Africa, yet one of the poorest. Spilling with oil, and clogged with lines at gas pumps. The continent's newest democracy, and capital of corruption. A place teeming with possibility - and with peril.
In other words, ...