Nigeria Signs Electricity Deals with Private firms

Nigeria and 15 Private firms struck long-anticipated electricity deals Monday in an effort to end decades of power cuts. Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan signed the deals on Monday handing over state electricity assets to the 15 bidding companies.

One of Nigeria's main problem is power cuts and blackouts. This milestone in privatization of state electricity to the private firms will hopefully help fix the problem and kindly keeps the lights on.

Economists say power outages cost Nigeria, Africa's second biggest economy billions of dollars on imported diesel for generators and in lost output. They say current GDP growth of around 7 percent could be pushed into double figures if electricity supply could be sorted out.

Power output is currently about 4,000 megawatts for a country of 170 million people.

"Today's event signals a major step forward in the implementation of our power sector road map," Jonathan said. "I congratulate the signing parties for reaching this significant target in our collective efforts to revitalize this sector, which is so important to our lives and development."