|
'The masses are suffering'
21/06/2007 08:57 - (SA)
Edward Harris
Lagos - Boys juggled soccer balls in deserted streets and cars jockeyed for position at filling stations as Nigeria's labour unions launched a strike aimed at overturning government price hikes on petrol in Africa's oil giant.
Nigeria is one of the world's leading crude producers, but virtually all of its gasoline is now imported after years of graft, mismanagement and violence rendered refineries inoperable.
Heavy government subsidies keep reimported petroleum products cheap in a country whose citizens complain they get little else in the way of services from a notoriously corrupt government. Unions launched their strike in hopes of forcing the government to roll back a 15% increase on automobile fuel.
"Our government makes us suffer too much. They never do anything to release our pain, they just keep piling on more suffering," said Funmi Olowu, a 32-year-old school teacher, on Wednesday. "I support the strike, I want it to go on until the government completely reverses the increases."
Only three weeks in office, President Umaru Yar'Adua is facing perhaps his biggest challenges so far - one handed to him by his successor who announced the price hike and related tax increases in the waning days of his administration.
Oil receipts account for some 80% of Nigeria's total government revenue and the unions are threatening to close the taps of Nigeria's energy industry, which is the biggest in Africa and the eighth-largest worldwide, sending crude prices toward nine-month highs on international markets.
While there were no immediate reports that the first day of the strike halted oil exports, the strike appeared to hold in all the country's regions. In the Muslim north, union workers enforced the shutdown by turning commercial passenger buses away from main cities and in the capital, Abuja, they blockaded a main road with tires and tree branches.
On the streets of Lagos, banks, schools and larger businesses were shuttered. While salaried employees could afford to stay home, many petty traders continued selling their dried peppers, roasted corn and smoked fish. For them, a day without earnings likely means a night of hunger.
'We can't be taken for granted'
"The strike is justified. We can't be taken for granted. The masses are suffering," said Freewheel Finesi, a 51-year old hurrying through empty streets, carrying a briefcase filled with spectacles. But he declined to join the strike. "I have to go to work. I'm an optician and a man needs his glasses."
With fuel deliveries mostly shut down and filling stations empty, most cars stayed off the streets, calming Lagos' notorious traffic jams - the furious, fuming pile-ups known as "go-slows" that typify the daily commutes in an overcrowded megalopolis of 13 million.
Boys converted empty streets into soccer pitches, sending shots between goal posts made of wooden stools that would normally seat the keepers of nearby market stalls. Others juggled balls alone, sending them bouncing from feet to thighs, to shoulders then onto upended foreheads.
Vehicles jostled for pole position at the few filling stations still selling fuel, with many customers cursing signs that still carried the official price - 75 naira, or about 60 US cents, per litre.
Ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo jacked the price up only days before handing over power on May 29 to Yar'Adua, who prevailed in elections rejected as rigged by the opposition and deemed not credible by international observers. Obasanjo stepped down because of term limits; Yar'Adua was the candidate of Obasanjo's party.
Yar'Adua's new administration, its legitimacy undermined by the flawed election, engaged the unions and offered to roll back the 15% fuel price increase by about half - despite the drain on government coffers that the subsidy represents. The government is trying to liberalise the economy and abolish anti-competitive tactics.
But in a move widely viewed as a probing tactic to gauge Yar'Adua's strength, the unions insisted on a complete repeal of the new measures, which also included Obasanjo's last-minute sale of two refineries to a pair of rich supporters.
Many Nigerians treated the first day of the strike as a welcome diversion from their daily duties, but warned that irritation would increase if supplies ran short due to an extended work stoppage.
- AP
|
News
