AS DARKNESS FALLS on Niamey, residents reach for their torches and switch on generators for some light as the city struggles with a massive power shortage.
For nearly a month now, Niger’s capital has been without electricity, the pitch black each night leaving residents already jittery after a series of attacks by militants ever more fearful of who may be hiding in the shadows.
“Our real fear of terrorists is worsened by these power cuts. It’s just incredible what we are going through,” local NGO worker Adamou Ousmane told AFP.
Playing on locals’ minds is an armed attack on paramilitary barracks in the capital ten days ago, which took place under the cover of darkness.
Niger nationals are still reeling too from twin bombings last month by militants on an army base and a French-run uranium mine in the north that killed over 20 people.
At night many streets across the capital are completely deserted. “Everyone hides at home,” says a police officer guarding the parliament.
“At night we are very afraid, the slightest dodgy movement in the darkness makes you jump,” says Elhadj Ali, who lives at the paramilitary camp that was attacked.
People also worry that edgy police on high alert might make blunders as they patrol the streets.
The power cuts often last several days at a time, complain locals.
“That lightbulb has not worked for a week,” moans Mamane Sanda, an accountant, pointing up to a tree branch where he has affixed a bulb intended to light up the entrance to his home.
According to the state electric company Nigelec, the problem started after three pylons that carry power from neighboring Nigeria were toppled in a storm.
There is currently only enough electricity to cover the power needs of about a third of the capital’s population, a stretch which has taken its toll on both daily life and the impoverished nation’s economy.
Drinking water is running out while at the hospitals, women are having to give birth by lamp- or torchlight, say health officials.
At a maternity ward in the working-class neighborhood of Dar-El-Salam, Hassana Hama, who is three months pregnant, leaves after a check-up. “They just used a battery torch to examine me,” she says.
A number of pharmacies have had to close while others have hauled in generators to avoid the same fate.
“If this keeps on, the whole economy and social framework will be ruined,” warned an economist speaking on television recently.
With no official figures available, it is hard to know just how much the cuts have impacted the economy, particularly as many people are self-employed, keeping shop stands and working casual jobs.
The street stalls that used to line Niamey’s alleys all through the night “now shut up shop as soon as night falls,” says one resident.
With shop owners rushing to get fuel to keep their fridges working, a number of filling stations have stopped selling oil, leaving long queues outside the few that are able to keep doing business with the help of a generator.
“I spend around 200,000 CFA francs ($ 394, 300 euros) a day on oil to keep my foodstuffs fresh,” says one shopkeeper. “Needless to say we are on our way to bankruptcy.”
Not even Niger’s media have been spared the effects. A number of television channels have suspended broadcasting or reduced their programming while the power shortages continue.
Meanwhile authorities use the stations that still function to remind the population to be “vigilant” against any new attacks and “denounce any suspicious or dubious character.”
Work on repairing the damaged pylons is to last several weeks, according to the government.
But the climate of fear in Niamey is likely to remain for some time to come. Militants have threatened to further target Niger as punishment for supporting the French-led mission to oust extremists in Mali.
