'Four dead' in Nigeria strike

The police say some 80 people have been arrested

Nigerian police at first confirmed, and then denied, reports that they killed four people when they fired on crowds during a general strike over massive fuel price rises on Monday.

They have again used teargas against strikers outside a government building in the capital, Abuja, while protesters in the biggest city, Lagos, have erected burning barricades.

Talks over the fuel price rise that sparked off the strike have resumed between the authorities and the unions.

President Olusegun Obasanjo says he is willing to reconsider the increase, but the BBC's Dan Isaacs in Abuja says it is not clear whether he is just buying time in the hope that the strike will fizzle out.

Until the issue is resolved I'm not in a position to call off the strike

Adams Oshiomhole
NLC leader

Police spokesman Chris Olakpe said that 88 people had been arrested on Monday.

Our correspondent says that the work stayaway has been less than convincing.

Lagos was reported to be a "ghost city" but our correspondent says that many shops and offices in the capital are open on Tuesday.

Petrol prices were raised by 54% on 20 June by the government, which says it will save some $2bn and will use the money to improve health and education services.

'Challenge'

Mr Olakpe at first confirmed newspaper reports that four "hoodlums" had been killed in the Mararaba suburb of Abuja.

But he later telephoned the French news agency, AFP, to say he had no record of anyone being shot.

The courts have declared the strike illegal but leaders of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) are undeterred.

Q&A: Nigeria's fuel strike

Strike in pictures

"The challenge for us is to go and take advantage of this committee and hopefully resolve the issue," said NLC leader Adams Oshiomhole.

"But until the issue is resolved I'm not in a position to call off the strike."

Oil industry officials say the key oil sector has not been affected, but trade unionists insists they have shut down Nigeria's main export earner.

"Most of our workers are at their posts and all our operations are open as at Tuesday morning," a spokesman for the state-run oil group Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Ndu Nghamadu, told AFP.

Normal flights

But union officials claimed that their strike had succeeded in the oil sector, which accounts for 96% of Nigeria's exports.

"We have succeeded in paralysing the oil sector. There has not been any lifting of fuel since midnight," said National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) general secretary Joseph Akinlaja.

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Neither strikes nor the increase in fuel prices will solve Nigeria's problems. What will stop the problem is a relentless fight against corruption.

Johnson Agbakagba, Nigeria

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Air traffic was operating normally although fewer workers turned up for duty.

The NLC had threatened to shut down the country's airspace unless their demands were met.

The decision to raise petrol prices is particularly controversial in the oil-rich nation of Nigeria, where poor people say they have not benefited from valuable oil exports.

The government has described the union's plans as "unwarranted, illegal and unfortunate", and said the union had not given the government the statutory 15 days of warning.

It also threatened legal action against any attempt to barricade factory gates or stop workers carrying out their normal duties.