Four killed as police crack down on illegal fuel sellers

A police crackdown on illegal fuel sellers sparked riots on the streets of Porto Novo, Benin's official capital, in which four people were killed, hospital sources said on Thursday. The trouble erupted on Wednesday after police seized three trucks packed with 50-litre containers of contraband petrol smuggled over the border from nearby Nigeria. Hundreds of vendors flocked to the aid of those being arrested, wielding machetes and firearms. Rioters set fire to tyres and a petrol station, smashed traffic lights across the city and damaged the house of the trade and industry minister, witnesses said. Buying smuggled fuel from illegal street vendors for as little as 200 CFA (38 US cents) a litre is an attractive proposition in Benin where petrol stations charge almost double the price for the legal fuel dispensed from their pumps. Earlier this month, Benin's National Commission To Combat Petrol Smuggling declared war on people trafficking cheap petrol into the country from Nigeria, as well as those transporting or selling it. Nigeria, the economic powerhouse of the region, has become increasingly irritated by the smuggling of subsidised fuel meant for local consumption across the border into neighbouring countries. This contraband trade is one of the main factors behind constant fuel shortages within Nigeria - an irony since the country's is Africa's largest oil exporter. But with crude oil prices hitting $45 a barrel on the world market, petrol prices are rising fast in oil-importing countries such as Benin, making the margins on smuggling cheap fuel out of Nigeria better and better. Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has come down hard on Benin over the last year for the government's perceived toleration of smuggling and a flourishing trade in Nigerian stolen goods. In August 2003, he simply closed his country's 700 km-long border with Benin for a week before agreeing to meet his counterpart to discuss the problem in the Nigerian border town of Badagri.