Norm Dixon
"Like a whistle was blown to halt the activity, the entire metropolis suddenly went dry of vehicles from 7am... Lagos was shut down... Banks, markets, business houses and state and federal secretariats were under lock and key", read the Lagos This Day's account of the first day of the four-day general strike that began on October 11.
Defying police repression and government legal moves to ban the stoppage, Nigeria's teeming cities were reduced to relative silence on October 11-14 as millions of workers, students, market-stall operators and the unemployed heeded the call by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), the country's peak council of blue-collar trade unions, to stay home in protest at a 25% increase in petrol and kerosene prices.
Nigeria's usually busy ports were idle as maritime workers walked off the job, as were the country's airports. Schools, universities and major hospitals were all closed. With the unions' agreement, Nigeria's vital oil export industry continued to operate with a skeleton staff. University students and unemployed youth took to the streets in support of the strike.
The NLC called the "warning strike" after talks with President Olusegun Obasanjo to put a stop to escalating fuel prices broke down on October 8. If the government does not reverse the increase following the stay-away, NLC president Adams Oshiomhole has warned, an indefinite general strike will begin in late October.
On September 23, the petrol price jumped 25% to 53 naira (US$0.40) a litre, while kerosene soared to 62 naira. In June 2000, petrol was 19 naira a litre and kero was 17 naira.
Under instructions from Western governments and the International Monetary Fund, Obasanjo's government has been steadily withdrawing price subsidies from petrol, diesel and kerosene, with the goal of forcing Nigeria's poverty-stricken majority to pay international prices for fuel. With almost 80% of Nigeria's 130 million people surviving on less than $1 a day, and no welfare system, cheap petrol and kerosene are vital for survival.
Any increase in petrol prices immediately increases public transport fares and food prices, while kero is the main fuel for cooking in most Nigerians' homes.
The bitter irony is that Nigeria is the world's seventh largest oil exporter, pumping some 2.3 million barrels of oil a day for the benefit of giant Western oil corporations. The hundreds of billions of dollars in oil revenue collected by Nigerian governments since oil exports began in 1956 has not been used to develop the country but has lined the pockets of Nigeria's corrupt pro-Western rulers, both military and civilian.
In July last year, the NLC and the white-collar Trade Union Congress held a eight-day general strike to stop a 54% fuel price increase. The government was forced to reduce the hike to 31%. At least 16 people were murdered by police during the strike.
On October 12, Oshiomhole threatened to extend the four-day strike if police did not cease attacks on strikers and their supporters. In Kaduna, in the country's north, a 12-year-old boy was shot dead by police on October 11 as they tried to break-up a roadblock erected by pro-strike protesters. Another protester was shot and killed by police the same day in Port Harcourt in south-eastern Nigeria.
Prior to the strike, on October 9 in the capital Abuja, Oshiomhole himself was attacked and roughed up by 15 officers of the State Security Service. He was bundled into an unmarked car, then detained for several hours before being released suffering from minor injuries. During the strike, police arrested NLC leaders in many of Nigeria's states.
Police in Awka, capital of Anambra State, arrested nine union leaders on October 12 but were forced to release them after 1000 strikers and their supporters laid siege to the police station where they were being held. On October 12, eight officials of the hotel workers' union were attacked in Lagos by masked men armed with machetes.
From Green Left Weekly, October 20, 2004.
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