Union chief held as fuel price rise fires up Nigerians

The Nigerian police arrested the leader of the national trade union confederation and fought street battles with youths as a general strike against a rise in the low petrol price shut down Lagos and other cities.

The government won a court injunction declaring the strike illegal on the grounds that the Nigerian Labour Congress had not given the required three weeks' notice, but that had little impact.

The unions implicitly threatened violence by ordering banks, petrol stations and transport companies to close or "give out free cash". Most complied.

The police arrested the NLC leader, Adams Oshiomole, and nine officials after they led a picket outside the government buildings in the capital, Abuja. When Mr Oshiomole refused to go quietly, they fired teargas and bullets into the air.

"How many people the police go kill?" he shouted as he was dragged away. "They will kill us until they tired."

In Lagos the police fired teargas to disperse youths who marched through the streets smashing the windows of the few buses and taxis that dared to operate. Others blocked the streets with burning tyres.

The strike was called after the government raised petrol prices by 18%, to the equivalent of 16p a litre. The unions say that the effects on transport and food prices will badly harm poor workers.

The government argues that the exceptionally low price of fuel encourages a huge smuggling racket into neighbouring countries, creating severe shortages in Nigeria.

Nigerians - who earn an average of £200 a year - have an emotional attachment to cheap petrol, largely because they get little else from the billions of pounds in revenue generated by the world's sixth biggest oil exporter.

Much of the infrastructure has collapsed, unemployment is high, the civil service barely functions and corruption dominates politics and some areas of business.

But the issue is so contentious that the military governments that ruled for many years avoided fuel price rises.

Two years ago President Olusegun Obasanjo's civilian government tried to raise the cost of fuel by 50% but was forced to back down by a five-day general strike. This time he seems to be better prepared, with troops deployed in many cities to protect public buildings.

Ministers have said the government will not back down.