Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan Thursday laid out plans to privatize most of the country's power sector, with corruption and mismanagement leading to daily outages in the oil-rich nation.

"We need a revolution in the power sector," Jonathan said in a speech in the country's economic capital Lagos .

The plans come ahead of presidential, legislative and state elections expected in January. Jonathan hasn't declared his candidacy, but is expected to do so.

His government plans to privatize electricity generation and distribution in the country as well as to boost natural gas availability to fire new plants. The government would continue to own the national grid.

Nigeria is one of the world's largest oil exporters, but has long been held back by corruption and the government has been unable to provide basic services, including electricity.

Businesses and residents who can afford them use generators much of the time to power their offices and homes.

Poor infrastructure has contributed to the west African country's electricity woes.

Διαβάστε ακόμα