Outlawed strike paralyses Nigeria

ABUJA, Nigeria -- Many Nigerian towns and cities have been paralysed by an outlawed strike over fuel price rises.

Despite the government's threat to use force to crush the strike schools, banks, shops, street markets and petrol stations were closed and most traffic was off the streets on Wednesday.

Union leader Adams Oshiomole, who organised the strike, was arrested along with nine other officials from the Nigeria Labour Congress as they picketed in Abuja.

Police fired teargas and bullets into the air at the 500 strikers after Oshiomole refused to go with the officers.

They were later charged with "unlawful assembly and inciting the general public against the government."

The Abuja High Court issued an order on Wednesday declaring the strike illegal.

The federal government had applied for an injunction against the union and Oshiomole, arguing the strike contravened Nigeria's labour laws which require 21 days' notice before a strike action.

Chief Justice M.D. Saleh signed an order which said: "I hereby declare that the strike...is not legal and hence its continuation is hereby declared illegal."

Armed police officers were in force in Abuja on Wednesday attempting to help those who wanted to work reach their offices.

But most workers appear to have stayed at home, although it is not clear whether that was due to sympathy with the strikers or because they feared encountering violence on the streets.

In Lagos, mobs of young men chanted and waved palm fronds as they marched through otherwise abandoned streets. Other youths blockaded roads with piles of burning tyres but no other clashes with police were reported.

A spokesman for President Olusegun Obasanjo, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Nigerian leader was meeting with his Cabinet on Wednesday to discuss the strike.

The NLC had called the strike in protest at an 18 percent increase in fuel prices which was introduced on January 1.

The president implemented the hike as part of his government's deregulation of oil products.

He also said the rise was necessary to stabilise supplies in a country where consumer shortages are common despite massive exports.

Nigeria is the world's sixth-largest oil exporter.

Obasanjo is under pressure from foreign creditors to end costly fuel subsidies of about $2 billion per year before the populous West African nation can qualify for relief on its foreign debt of about $30 billion.

A general strike orchestrated by the NLC paralysed the country and led to violence after Obasanjo hiked fuel prices by 50 percent in June 2000. He was later forced to backtrack.

More than 3,000 people have died in clashes across the country since military rule ended in 1999.