Nigeria back to work after strike

LAGOS, Nigeria -- Businesses in Nigeria's major cities were returning to normal on Friday after a general strike over fuel price rises ended after two days.

The umbrella trade union movement, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), called off the strike on Thursday amid falling public support and a government crackdown on the pickets after a court ruled the strike illegal.

Business activity in Nigeria's main commercial city, Lagos, picked up on Friday as street markets resumed, while traffic returned to most city roads.

The end of the strike seemed to be a victory for President Olusegun Obasanjo and his plan to deregulate the sale of petroleum products and save the government $2 billion a year in fuel subsidies.

It was a blow to the labour movement, which had failed in its threat to make Nigeria ungovernable if the petrol price increases of between 18 and 35 percent were not reversed.

NLC President Adams Oshiomhole was released on bail on Friday, having spent the night in police custody after being arrested on Thursday on charges of disrupting public order for a second time in two days.

"We don't want to do things that will portray us as people who disobey the law," Oshiomhole said on the steps of an Abuja Magistrate's Court, adding he had been consulted before the strike was called off.

"I am assuring you the struggle continues," Reuters quoted him as saying.

Nigerian union leaders began a two-day meeting on Friday to review the failed strike, newspapers said.

Burning tyres

The action had paralysed much of the country on the Wednesday, the first day, but had showed signs of faltering on Thursday

It forced markets, fuel stations and banks -- which unions had warned should close or "give out free cash" -- to close and lock their doors.

In Lagos, the commercial capital, mobs of young men chanted and waved palm fronds as they marched through otherwise abandoned streets, breaking the windows of a few buses and taxis.

Other youths blockaded roads with piles of burning tyres, as clusters of stranded commuters looked on.

Demand for petrol is expected to exceed 30 million litres a day in 2002, while the country's rusty refineries are producing a maximum of 16 million litres, government figures show.

Labour leaders have accused Obasanjo of giving in to pressure from Western creditors demanding an end to subsidies before the West African nation gets relief on its foreign debt of about $30 billion.

During the last strike over petrol prices which lasted five days in June 2000, gangs of youths barricaded Lagos streets, turning back taxis, buses and commuters who tried to venture into the main business districts.

The government has changed its tactics from June 2000, which ended with the cancellation of its announced 50 percent price hike.