Sitting in his dark workshop in the eastern city of Aba amid empty diesel cans, Hyginius Ihunnia, a cobbler, equates power failure with government failure. Like many manufacturers, large and small, Mr Ihunnia’s business has been crippled by a lack of electricity and the cost of running his own generator.

The country is almost as starved of electricity provision as it was when military rule ended in 1999. One government estimate this year put power generation capacity at the equivalent of one light bulb per Nigerian.