Nigeria to draw $5 billion from crude fund for power

ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigeria's government will withdraw $5.37 billion (2.72 billion pounds) from its excess crude oil account to finance the development of its dilapidated power infrastructure, the country's finance minister said on Thursday.

President Umaru Yar'Adua has said he will declare a state of emergency next month over the power crisis in Nigeria, one of the main brakes on growth in Africa's most populous nation.

"The (national economic) council agreed and approved that money required to finance power projects during the period of the state of emergency ... should come from the excess crude account," Finance Minister Shamsuddeen Usman told reporters.

Usman also said the government would release $4.8 billion to the country's 36 state governors and local government councils for June from the account, in which Nigeria saves oil revenues above a benchmark price.

(Reporting by Felix Onuah; Editing by Jan Paschal, Nick Tattersall and Randy Fabi)