Police shoot two protestors during strike - witnesses

Police shot and injured two protesters in the Nigerian capital Abuja on Thursday as a nationwide general strike against a 20 per cent increase in fuel prices entered its second day, witnesses said. Streets that are normally clogged with traffic in the commercial capital Lagos remained deserted. Schools, offices and businesses stayed closed there and in most other Nigerian cities. Hundred of motorbike riders joined a convoy of union leaders in Abuja as they toured fuel stations in the country's administrative capital to check if dealers had complied with the directive to reduce prices. Union officials said two people were shot in the leg as riot police moved in. Nigeria police spokesman Chris Olakpe confirmed the police had dispersed the procession of motorbike riders because it was an "unlawful assembly", but he denied that anybody had been shot. "No bullets were shot, no canisters were fired," he told IRIN. Adams Oshiomhole, the head of the Nigeria Labour Congress who had been in the convoy, was undeterred. As head of the country's biggest union, he vowed the strike would last as long as oil prices were high, despite threats from the security forces. “The struggle continues,” he told reporters. "It will be better for a few of us to be in prison for the entire country to be free rather than the whole of Nigeria being imprisoned as is the case at the moment.” Witnesses said those injured in Abuja were taken away immediately by the police and their fate was unknown. In June last year similar protests against spiralling oil prices escalated into riots and 12 people were killed. A high court judge ruled on Tuesday that the unions should call off the strike and that the government should cancel the fuel price rise. Nigeria’s Petroleum Prices Regulatory Agency said on Tuesday night that it would immediately abide by the ruling. But the unions said they wanted prices to be visibly reduced at the pumps before ending their action and that no more talks were scheduled with government officials. If the stoppage is prolonged it could threaten Nigeria's oil exports. These are the main stay of the economy, accounting for more than 80 percent of all government revenue. Leaders of two powerful oil sector unions, the blue-collar National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers of Nigeria and the white-collar Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, said their members had walked off their jobs in the oil fields and export terminals of the Niger Delta in the southeast of the country. However, the multinational companies which pump more than two million barrels of oil per day said that while the strike had disrupted administrative activities, it had not affected the loading of tanker vessels. "We've been making efforts to ensure the effects of the strike are minimal," said a spokesman for oil giant Shell without giving details. A Shell source told IRIN that helicopters taking workers to and from oil platforms and export terminals had been grounded by the strike, leaving workers stranded and preventing their replacements from going in. But she confirmed that oil exports had not been hurt so far. Almost 50 unions started the stoppage on Wednesday, in protest at a fuel price hike in late May. This was the fifth mark-up in as many years. The unions fear it will spur inflation and worsen the already precarious living conditions of most Nigerians. However, the government of President Olusegun Obasanjo says the increases are necessary to eliminate costly subsidies and stop the smuggling of cheap Nigerian petrol to neighbouring countries where fuel prices are higher. Nigeria is the world's seventh-largest oil exporter and supplies the U.S. with one fifth of its imports, but 70 percent of the 126 million population live on less than a dollar a day. Hopes that Obasanjo would personally intervene to resolve his government’s impasse with the unions were dashed on Wednesday when he departed to attend the G-8 Summit of the world’s richest countries at Sea Island, Georgia, at the invitation of US President George Bush. Obasanjo’s departure as the strike erupted drew severe criticism, particularly from the opposition Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP), which has been calling for the president's resignation over allegations his re-election last year was rigged. “The current national crisis over fuel prices is akin to a national emergency, yet our globe-trotting president is off again while the nation burns,” CNPP said in a statement.