The leader of Nigeria’s National Labour Congress (NLC) said on Friday a renewable nationwide general strike against rising fuel prices will start on Monday and last four days, after talks with authorities collapsed.
The news of further unrest in Nigeria could push world oil prices, already influenced by events in the country, higher still next week.
”This first stage should be seen as a warning strike: it is meant to persuade the government and to convince them that Nigerians are truly, truly angry and that no reform can succeed without the people,” NLC president Adams Oshiomhole told reporters.
”After these four days, if the federal government still has not revised these prices, then we will suspend the strike for two weeks and after two weeks the strike will be renewed,” he said. ”The length of that renewal will determine whether it is then going to be indefinite or it’s going to be for another period.”
Two weeks ago, the NLC issued an ultimatum to the government, demanding a roll-back of fuel prices to their level before September 23 when they jumped 25% per litre, to 55 naira (40 United States cents).
The ultimatum warned that failure to do so would lead to a general strike from Monday, a move that could hit crude production at a time when world prices are already at an all-time high.
Earlier, Oshiomhole had met Nigerian governors and oil-sector executives but said later: ”I regret to have to say that this meeting was not fruitful because there was no concrete proposal on the table.
”All that the governors offered to us was that they are going to persuade [the] president to allow for dialogue, because the problem has been that the federal government completely shut their doors to dialogue.”
On Thursday, the Nigerian Senate voted to urge President Olusegun Obasanjo rapidly to open talks with labour to avert the strike, and two oil unions launched an unrelated two-day stoppage at Shell facilities to protest imminent job losses.
The Senate asked Obasanjo to increase subsidies in order to cut Nigeria’s domestic fuel prices to their previous levels. But lawmakers also appealed to the NLC and civil society groups to postpone their action, to create a calmer atmosphere for talks.
The government has said the higher fuel prices are a result of a deregulation policy introduced in October last year, which allows private oil-product retailers to import refined fuel and fix consumer sale prices.
The pump price of petrol is a hugely sensitive issue for the impoverished masses in Africa’s most populous nation, and previous increases have triggered two general strikes since June last year.
Although the country is a major exporter of the type of crude oil that is best suited for turning into petrol, its domestic refineries are ravaged by corruption and mismanagement and Nigeria relies on imports for refined fuels.
Previous general strikes have done little to disrupt Nigeria’s exports of about 2,6-million barrels of crude per day, but the latest action comes at a time when oil unions are already up in arms over planned job losses.
Workers at the Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell launched a two-day strike on Thursday in reaction to the implementation of a restructuring programme.
Shell’s Nigerian arm is the biggest player in the country’s production and export business, accounting on the international market for more than a million barrels per day of light crude. — Sapa-AFP