Nigeria, Jan. 21 -- It was on a quiet Saturday evening when this reporter met Comr. Muhammed Musa, a resident of Patigi local government, sitting on a wooden bench outside his small, fading salon. The sun was dipping behind the trees, and with every inch it fell, the darkness crept closer uninvited, unchallenged, and permanent.

His shop, which should have been buzzing with clippers and chatter, was instead silent and brooding. Musa, a middle-aged barber, looked exhausted, the kind of exhaustion that settles not in the body but in the spirit.

"The absence of electricity in my area for the past seven years has really affected my business. I run this barbing saloon, and before the absence of electricity, I used to make between N10k to N15...