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Nigeria: Protests over removal of fuel subsidy
(Reuters) – Hundreds of Nigerians took to the streets on Monday, launching a nationwide strike to protest against the axing of a popular fuel subsidy in Africa’s top oil producer.
Shops, banks and petrol stations were shut and the highways into the main commercial city of Lagos, usually clogged with rush hour traffic, were eerily empty.
Nigeria’s fuel regulator announced the end of the subsidy on January 1 as part of efforts to cut government spending and encourage badly needed investment in local refining.
Economists say the subsidy merely filled the fuel tanks of the rich and middle classes at the expense of the poor, fed corruption and siphoned off billions of dollars of public funds to a cartel of wealthy fuel importers.
Removing it has been a flagship policy of President Goodluck Jonathan and his economic management team.
“It was 25 percent of total expenditure in the budget, the single biggest item – more than education, health and agriculture combined,” said Bismarck Rewane, chief executive of Lagos-based consultancy Financial Derivatives. “As long as they spend the money right, removing the subsidy has to be good.”
But unions, workers and middle class Nigerians with cars were furious when the price of a litre of petrol shot up to around 150 naira (US$ 0.93) overnight from about 65 naira (US$ 0.40) before.
Hundreds of people gathered outside Labour house, in Yaba, the downtown market area of Lagos, waving union flags, from where they started marching and shouting “solidarity forever”, closely watched by armed police in riot gear.
