I spent the weekend working on an alternative measure of economic activity for Nigeria. Something different from the regular run of the mill GDP. One new option is to measure economic activity by monitoring night lights from space. The basic idea is areas with more illumination at night are assumed to have more economic activity than areas with less illumination. [...]

One thing I noticed during the fuel subsidy saga earlier in the year was the demonization of most of the people somehow connected with the oil industry. The oil marketers are wicked and evil, the NNPC staff are wicked and evil, the PPRA guys are wicked and evil, how could anyone with a conscience do all that, and so on. [...]