Nigerians strike over fuel prices - Tens of millions

[dArKeR]

Abuja - Tens of millions of Nigerians boycotted work Wednesday as labour leaders called a nationwide general strike in a bid to force President Olusegun Obasanjo's government to reign in soaring fuel prices.

The normally teeming streets of the commercial capital Lagos were almost empty, service stations were closed and the city's largest food market deserted on the first day of what labour has threatened will be a three-week stoppage.

In the capital Abuja some federal civil servants trickled in to work, having been threatened with losing their wages, but large squads of riot police were deployed at strategic junctions in anticipation of a day of protest.

http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=2106827

It baffles me why Americans can't pull off a 'shut down the country' general strike.



Oil still spurts in Nigeria
Lagos - The major oil multinationals operating in Nigeria, including Royal Dutch/Shell and ChevronTexaco Corp, said the general strike which began on Wednesday has not affected production, but they are monitoring the ongoing situation.

Oil unions joined the nationwide protest against domestic fuel prices on Wednesday, having previously vowed to halt exports from Nigeria - Africa's largest crude supplier - with exports of more than 2 million barrels a day.

"We are still studying the effect of the strike on our work. At the current time we are still producing crude, said Don Boham, head of public affairs in Nigeria for the Anglo-Dutch giant Shell.

http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,,2-11-1447_1540100,00.html

One can't help to inquire that Bush's Vietnam is about CheveronTexaco, Exxon... NOT being able to do business in Iraq!

[BayCityProgressive]

1. they havent been

pushed hard enough. They are fed FOX News anti-union garbage..our "opposition party" istimid..we have no socialist, communist, or radical union leadership...and lives of Nigerians are far worse than Americans..they have more reason to do this.

[notadmblnd]

2. bingo

not enough people are desperate enough yet.

[PeaceProgProsp]

6. Americans are less price sensitive because of credit.

Credit cards and mortgages, specifically.

And that's crazy because buying overpriced shit like gas on credit is even worse than if you couldn't afford it all and had no credit.

Not only are you paying the $100 bucks at the pump every month, but you're paying interest on that to the banks, and you're driving yourself deeper into insolvency, which might cost you your home.

You'd be better off if you simply couldn't afford to buy gas.

But Americans won't strike over high prices for anything so long as they can buy on credit and live like slaves to banks.

[AndyTiedye]

4. Nobody Goes on Strike Anymore for fear of Outsourcing

Outsourcing has destroyed what was left of the labor movement.

[Wright Patman]

3. Maybe they heard

that the Iraqis were enjoying 5-cent-a-gallon gas.

[lucky777]

5. water water everywhere and not a drop to drink

You know something is fucked when an oil rich country has astronomical oil prices. Those oil companies basically run Nigeria and keep their workers behind locked doors for their own protection.

Africa always works this way: farmers growing coffee beans for cash instead of growing crops people can eat, etc. It's been ruined by colonialists.

[dArKeR]

7. Nigeria's fuel strike heads into second day

Abuja - Millions of Nigerian workers marked the second day of a nationwide general strike on Thursday as labour leaders turned up the pressure on President Olusegun Obasanjo's government over fuel prices.

Government officials insisted that they had complied with a court order and forced private filling stations to cut prices by around a fifth, as demanded by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and other union bodies.

But union leaders in Lagos and Abuja said they would not call off the strike until they had confirmed for themselves that prices had fallen.

"We are going out to monitor the filling stations' compliance with the court order. This will help us decide our next line of action," said NLC spokesman Owei Lakemfa as he led a convoy of activists onto the streets of Lagos.

http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=2108367