Nigeria Economy

Reuben Onyewikpe Loveday, a farmer in the depressed swamplands of the Niger River Delta, nostalgically remembers the days when he could make a healthy living off his three acres of land. Bountiful yields of yams, cassava and plantains and reliable catches from his fish pond used to guarantee him about $8,000 a year--a handsome sum in a country where the annual per capita income hovers around $320.

Deep in the steamy Niger River delta, with thick mangrove swamps and chocolate-brown rivers stretching to the horizon, drilling supervisor Funsho Amoo shouts to be heard above the hissing steam, thumping machinery and groaning metal of a Shell oil rig. "This well produces 2,000 barrels a day," Amoo hollers beside a giant hoist that shudders and shrieks as it pushes pipe into the muck. "But something is damaged, so we are repairing the pipe."

Like so many millions here, Lizy Ute used to have new kitchen appliances. Her kids wore new clothes, and the family drove the latest-model car. But those days are long gone for her and the rest of Nigeria's middle class, once the largest in Africa. "I used to consider myself middle class, but now there is only high and low," said Ute, pausing from hard-nosed negotiations with a shoe salesman at a Lagos market the other day.

The walls of some government buildings were still blackened from the fires set by demonstrators, and troops still trained their carbines toward the sidewalk from their redoubt behind the gates of the government radio station, when the Oba of Benin decided what was necessary to restore tranquility to this regional center: a citywide three-day fast.