2-week strike forces Nigeria to cut oil prices
Lagos—nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan on Monday announced a petrol price cut in a bid to end a nationwide strike now in its second week, as soldiers seized a main protest site and deployed to key spots.
Jonathan broke the news in a televised national address after a week that saw him remain largely silent in public as the strike and mass protests shut down Africa’s most populous nation and largest oil producer.
The president’s announcement that fuel prices would be slashed by around 30 percent came after talks with unions had failed to resolve the dispute.
He charged that the protests had been “hijacked” by those seeking to promote “discord, anarchy and insecurity.”
Unions have vowed to press ahead with the strike, although they said they were calling off street protests due to the security concerns voiced by Jonathan. However, a range of civil society and political groups have been organizing demonstrations.
“Government will continue to pursue full deregulation of the downstream petroleum sector,” Jonathan said in his address.
“However, given the hardships being suffered by Nigerians, and after due consideration and consultations with state governors and the leadership of the National Assembly, government has approved the reduction of the pump price of petrol to 97 naira (about 60 US cents) per liter.”
He added: “I urge our labor leaders to call off their strike and go back to work.”
The government had ended fuel subsidies on Jan. 1, causing petrol prices to more than double from 65 naira per liter to 140 naira or more, sparking the strike and protests that began on Jan. 9.
Most in the country of some 160 million people live on less than two dollars a day, and most Nigerians have viewed the subsidies as their only benefit from the nation’s oil wealth.
Soldiers on Monday set up roadblocks at key points in the economic capital Lagos for the first time since the protests began, stopping cars and searching them.
Demonstrators could not enter the park in Lagos where they have been gathering for the past week as troops and police took it over. Three armored vehicles with machine guns were stationed in the area.
One senior police officer at the site made no pretense of the aim of the deployment.
“It is total surrender to the might of the federal government,” he said. “They cannot come here again today in view of this situation.” Protesters who began arriving on Monday morning were being told to leave the area.