Nigeria braces for strike, oil exports in danger
[08 Jun 2004]
LAGOS (AFP)
servihoo.com
Nigerians were stockpiling food and fuel in anticipation of a nationwide general strike against rising petrol prices which could disrupt vital exports from the world's sixth largest oil supplier.
Union leaders told AFP that there was nothing government could now do, short of immediately slashing pump prices, to avert a shut-down from midnight Tuesday which would paralyse economic life across a nation of 130 million people.
Nevertheless the government invited union leaders to an eleventh-hour meeting in a bid to avert the strike, which could also have global economic consequences if it forces already soaring world oil prices any higher.
Observers here fear it could also trigger further bloody unrest in the frequently unstable west African giant.
"The strike plan is on course. We have given our members instructions to shut down. Both the upstream and downstream sectors will be affected," said Mojibayo Fadakinte, general secretary of the white-collar oil union PENGASSAN.
The union's blue-collar counterpart, NUPENG, said that it would stop loading crude oil at terminals from Wednesday, threatening to halt exports that account for 95 percent of the foreign earnings of Africa's biggest oil exporter.
"The strike will definitely affect Nigeria's oil production and exports. There is no going back," said NUPENG general secretary Joseph Akinlaja.
Both Nigeria's main union umbrella bodies -- the workers' Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and managers' Trade Union Congress (TUC) -- back the strike.
NLC national mobilisation officer Denja Yacqub said: "We are mobilising everybody to join the strike: the banks, the oil workers, the transporters, civil society, students, traders."
"We are not negotiating with any government or anybody. The time for talks or negotiations has passed," he told AFP.
A senior government spokesman told AFP that officials hoped to speak with NLC leaders, but later a planned meeting of oil industry stakeholders slated for 8.00 pm (1900 GMT) was postponed until early Tuesday.
President Olusegun Obasanjo's spokeswoman and officials at the labour ministry refused to comment on the upcoming strike, but the chairman of the ruling People's Democratic Party said labour's position was "too extreme".
"It's adding too much fire to an already tense situation. We're very worried about this strike," Audu Ogbeh told reporters, accusing the unions of "going to war against the government and people of Nigeria".
Long queues snaked through the crowded streets of Lagos towards markets and filling stations, as residents sought to stockpile ahead of the strike. And, while there was annoyance at rising prices, most said they supported labour.
"This rush is because of panic-buying. But I think it is a sacrifice we have to make now if the struggle to emancipate the people from the oppressive policies of this government is to be won," Lagos lawyer Tope Ayinla said.
On May 28, Nigerian service stations raised prices from 41.7 naira per litre (around 30 cents) to between 50 and 55 naira.
The price is still low by world standards but it marks the latest in a series of steep increases in an oil-rich country whose impoverished citizens once regarded cheap, subsidised fuel as a birthright.
Obasanjo's government abolished subsidies and price controls in June last year as part of a programme of liberal economic reforms designed to halt Nigeria's seemingly inexorable slide into poverty.
But following a previous general strike -- during which at least 12 protesters were shot dead by police -- the state has had a hand in controlling prices through an industry stakeholders committee.
Unions called another strike in January when Obasanjo attempted to impose a 1.5 naira per litre levy on petrol prices to pay for road repairs, but both sides backed down after a court suspended both the tax and the protest.
NLC president Adams Oshiomhole told reporters on Monday that although his movement and the TUC had received a summons to appear in a federal high court in Abuja on Tuesday, the strike would still go ahead as planned.
Nigeria's fuel price regulator has rejected an NLC demand that government should reinstate the subsidy, saying that such a move would "erode all the gains of the last five years instead of consolidating such gains".
Since Obasanjo came into office in May 1999, pump prices have risen at least five times, amid government promises that subsidy money would be better spent on social services such as roads, health and education. |
