On June 13, the general strike that began a week earlier forced the Nigerian federal government to all but reverse fuel price increases it had announced earlier. On June 1, the government of President Olusegun Obasanjo had announced a surprise decision to impose a 50% price increase on petrol (from 20 naira per litre to 30 naira â about US$0.30), diesel fuel (19 naira to 29 naira) and kerosene (17 naira to 27 naira).
Students reacted immediately in many parts of the country with militant daily protests that began on June 5 after the government refused to reverse the increases. The Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) was forced by pressure from workers to begin an indefinite general strike a day earlier than planned.
The increases were the result of the government's decision to withdraw price subsidies. The increases immediately flowed to public transport fares and food prices. Nigeria's workers and poor would have been hard hit by the increase in the price of kerosene, the main fuel for cooking.
The ending of fuel subsidies was a main condition for a US$1 billion International Monetary Fund stand-by loan. Nigeria also needs IMF endorsement of its economic policies if its US$31 billion foreign debt is to be restructured at a meeting in Paris later this year.
Adams Oshiomhole, president of the NLC, accused President Obasanjo of working in the interests of the big foreign-owned oil companies. The NLC's central working committee described the price hikes as most insensitive, inconsiderate and punitive to the citizens of the country, especially the workers and masses of Nigeria.
The strike was most effective in the major cities of the south-west: Lagos, Benin City, Ibadan, Akure and Abeokuta. Tens of thousands of workers blocked streets and built barricades in Lagos and Abeokuta on June 7. Students, organised by the National Association of Nigerian Students, participated strongly. The strike was also effective in the northern town of Ilorin and the capital, Abuja, where federal civil servants observed the strike.
The key oil industry unions, the white-collar PENGASSAN and the blue-collar NUPENG, joined the strike on June 8. The oil industry is Nigeria's main source of export income.
The NLC rejected an offer by the government on June 6 to halve the price increases on petrol and diesel and to drop the kerosene price altogether. The NLC insisted that the rises had to be reversed completely before workers would return to work.
On June 12, the government offered to reduce the petrol and diesel increase to just 2 naira and to completely drop the price rise for kerosene. The NLC accepted the compromise and called off the strike.
The national strike and student demonstrations may mark the end of the honeymoon period that the reformer Obasanjo has enjoyed since his election on February 27 last year. Obasanjo was the endorsed candidate of the dominant faction of Nigeria's powerful military after it agreed to the return of civilian rule after decades of military dictatorship. He is also strongly backed by the US and British governments.
Oshiomhole told a mass rally in Lagos on June 7: Nigerians paid great sacrifices with their sweat and blood for the enthronement of the present democratic rule to improve their welfare but the government has gone further to unleash more suffering on the people.
Seteolu Bamidele, who teaches at Lagos State University, told This Day newspaper on June 7: The [Obasanjo] government seems to prefer the IMF/World Bank prescriptions ... Nigeria was under structural adjustment for nearly a decade and what we had [to show] for it were poverty, marginalisation, human under-development, infrastructural collapse, industrial capacity under-utilisation, the bastardisation of the naira, dumping and closure of factories â a huge social cost.
Both houses of the Nigerian parliament had passed resolutions demanding that Obasanjo reverse the fuel price increases. Several state governors also backed the strikers' demands.
BY NORM DIXON