Politics
Nigeria update: Growing anger over fuel prices
“Continuing disregard of that order is dangerous to the public interest as it constitutes an open invitation to anarchy,” Adoke said in a statement issued late Tuesday.
Adoke also warned public workers that the government would implement a “no work, no pay” policy for those who join the strike. However, public workers sometimes go weeks without pay in Nigeria, where corruption and mismanagement has plagued government for decades.
In Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital of 15 million, several hundred protesters on Wednesday took over a major highway leading to the islands where the wealthy live. One protester carried a signed that read: “We are ready for the civil war.”
Fears about violence were heightened as the leader of a radical Islamist sect challenged the authority of Nigeria’s president in an online video. The video by Imam Abubakar Shekau, the leader of the sect known as Boko Haram, will only aggravate existing religious and ethnic tensions in Nigeria, a nation of more than 160 million.
Unrest could affect oil production in Nigeria, which pumps about 2.4 million barrels of oil a day and is a top crude supplier to the U.S. However, most fields remain unmanned and offshore oil fields provide a share of its capacity.
Babatunde Ogun, president of one major union representing oil workers, said Wednesday his group planned to escalate their strike.
“It means in the short term, there will be no export of natural gas, there will be no power,” Ogun said. “Everything will be at a standstill.”
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.
