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General strike over higher fuel prices shuts Nigeria down

Many banks, schools and stores shuttered their doors yesterday in Nigerian cities where guilds representing millions of workers embarked on a general strike to protest fuel price increases.

The strike, which began at midnight on Tuesday, threatened oil exports from Africa's largest producer.

Nigeria's two major oil unions were participating in the strike. Don Boham, a spokesman for Royal Dutch/Shell, accounting for half the country's production of 2.5 million barrels a day, said some workers in the commercial capital of Lagos were unable to come to work because buses and taxis were not operating.

It was too early to determine whether the company's operations had been adversely affected, Boham added.

"We're still studying the effects," he said. "The situation is calm."

Leaders of Nigeria's blue-collar oil union were meeting yesterday to decide what steps to take next, officials said.

Nigeria is the world's seventh-biggest oil exporter and the source of one-fifth of US oil imports.

Few vehicles plied the normally traffic-clogged roads of Lagos, Nigeria's largest city, where clusters of riot police kept watch over a small group of chanting university students and separate clusters of thugs known as "area boys" gathering on otherwise abandoned streets.

In the capital, Abuja, traffic was a bit heavier, although many shops and stores were also closed. Peter Ozo-Eson, a Nigeria Labor Congress official, blamed a state television report that incorrectly reported the strike was called off late Tuesday for "confusing some people" who ventured out onto the streets.

"This is a strike. We have asked people to stay home," Ozo-Eson said.

Armored vehicles carrying police with tear gas launchers and automatic rifles stationed at key intersections in the capital deterred union members from staging rallies as anticipated "because the Nigerian citizens don't have guns to challenge them," Ozo-Eson said.

Talks called by President Olusegun Obasanjo's government on Monday and Tuesday failed to avert the strike.

Late Tuesday, a court in Abuja ordered the government to lower fuel prices and told unions to call off the strike or face punitive action.

Labor Minister Hassan Lawal argued that it was independent marketers -- and not the government -- who were responsible for raising pump prices under recent government deregulation. Lawal urged marketers to bring prices down.

Nigeria Labor Congress leader Adams Oshiomhole accused the government of "hiding behind deregulation" while "jacking up prices."

Strikers threatened to shut down oil terminals and rigs, cutting off the flow.

Police warned against protests, saying none had been granted a permit, and urged people to go about their "lawful business."

Police shot and killed at least 12 people during a violent 10-day strike called last year to protest a fuel price increase.

The strike was called off after the government agreed to lower prices.
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