Normalcy returns as unions end strike

Normalcy started to return to Nigeria on Friday after labour unions called off a two-day-old general strike which had shut down most of the country’s major cities. The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), which groups the country’s 29 main trade unions, said late on Thursday it was suspending the strike against increases in fuel prices in compliance with a court ruling that declared the action as illegal. “The Central Working Committee, having carried out consultations with Congress’s leadership, civil society allies and solicitors, resolved to comply with the directive of the court,” John Odah, NLC Secretary General, said in a statement. However, NLC president, Adams Oshiomhole, arrested for the second time in two days on Thursday, remained in detention on Friday morning. Government officials in the capital Abuja said he was likely to be charged for contempt of court. “He misled workers into continuing an illegal strike after a court ruled against it and is going to be charged for contempt,” a senior official in the justice ministry told IRIN. President Olusegun Obasanjo said the second increase in fuel prices since the inception of his administration in 1999, was a necessary step towards liberalising fuel distribution and ending the country’s history of shortages despite being the world’s sixth biggest exporter of crude oil. Opponents of the move accuse him of uncritically adopting policy reforms prescribed by the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and Western creditor governments. The consequences, they argue, include worsening inflation and deepening poverty affecting an increasing number of Nigerians.