Compromise mooted as strike enters second day

The general strike called by Nigerian labour unions to protest a stiff government increase in fuel prices paralysed Nigerian cities for a second straight day on Tuesday. However both the government and the unions indicated a compromise had been mooted. Talks between government officials and union leaders which spilled over from Monday into the early hours of Tuesday, continued in the afternoon. Sources close to the talks said government had suggested compromise prices however labour leaders were insisting that the 54 percent increase announced on 20 June, be reversed. An aide to President Olusegun Obasanjo told IRIN the government had indicated it was willing to accept a reduction in the fuel prices. "What is left now is to work out an acceptable price level with the labour unions," he said. The streets of the capital Abuja and the main economic hub Lagos remained largely deserted. Businesses and offices were shut. In Abuja, police fired teargas to disperse a crowd of unionists being addressed by Adams Oshiomhole, president of the umbrella trade union, Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC). "Keep up the struggle, we shall win," Oshiomhole exhorted the workers before driving off as the teargas fumes became unbearable. He later told reporters he had lodged an official complaint at the police headquarters against police brutality against striking workers and protesters. Several people, including journalists, were charged at by a contingent of baton-wielding policemen at the rally. One photographer had his camera smashed while others were assaulted by the detachment of riot police. The NLC later accused the police of shooting dead four protestors in an earlier protest in Abuja on Monday and urged that those responsible be arrested and prosecuted. Reports showed support remained strong for the strike in nearly all the 36 states. Opposition parties, which had said Obasanjo's April re-election for a second four-year term was massively rigged, urged workers to continue the strike. The main opposition All Nigeria Peoples Party in a statement accused Obasanjo of "implementing anti-people...programmes as thank-you-gifts in the aftermath of a fraudlent general election". Signs the industrial action may hurt Nigeria's oil exports began to emerge on Tuesday after senior employees of oil transnationals, joined the strike. "We effectively joined today," a Shell employee in the oil town of Warri in the Niger Delta, told IRIN. "But it's still lukewarm as union officials have not really moved to enforce strict compliance." A spokesman for Shell, which pumps about half of Nigeria's oil, said the action had not yet affected its oil exports although many people have been kept away from the offices by the lack of public transportation. Obasanjo raised the prices, saying Africa's largest oil producer should stop spending US $2 billion a year on subsidising fuel that was already extremely cheap by international standards. But labour leaders argued that price increases of more than 50 percent for petrol, diesel and kerosene would only aggravate poverty in this country of 120 million people, 70 percent of whom live on less than US $1 per day.