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  • Jan 22nd, 2004
  • Comments Off on Nigerian labour suspends strike after fuel tax lifted
Nigerian labour leaders called off a nation-wide general strike only a few hours after it began Wednesday, as President Olusegun Obasanjo's government suspended collection of a new fuel tax.

Millions of workers had stayed at home, some in solidarity with the strike, others because they feared a repeat of the street violence which left several dead during a similar protest last year.

But the country's teeming cities had already begun getting back to the bustle of business as usual when Adams Oshiomhole, president of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), called a halt to the action.

"Since the government has removed the illegal tax on petrol, we are also able to suspend our strike and resume work. We are suspending the strike until government reintroduces the tax," he said after the meeting.

Nigeria is Africa's biggest oil exporter, shipping more than two million barrels of crude per day, and world oil markets have been watching the dispute cautiously out of concern it could disrupt supplies.

In what some observers regarded as show of strength, Oshiomhole had allowed the protest to go ahead despite a ruling from the Abuja Appeals Court, which on Tuesday had slapped a ban on the threatened action.

But the same court order also forced Obasanjo's government to suspend the collection of the tax, at least until Monday when the court will begin hearings into the legality of both the tax and the strike against it.

Even before the NLC's announcement, Obasanjo had left Nigeria on a four-day trip to Europe to visit the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland and the Commonwealth Secretariat in London.

Support for the nation-wide stoppage - which began at midnight on Tuesday - was far from total, and many workers and traders had begun to trickle in to work even as NLC leaders met in Lagos to make their decision.

Nevertheless, many banks, markets and small businesses and most petrol stations were closed.

Last June, at least 12 strikers were killed by police during an eight-day stoppage, and heavily armed riots squads were deployed at key junctions and bus stops throughout Lagos, but there was no sign of trouble.

The court ruled that both the strike and the tax should be suspended at least until Monday, when Judge Isa Ayo Salami will probably extend the ban.

But in the Lagos petrol stations visited by AFP staff were still selling fuel at Tuesday's price of 43 naira (30 cents) per litre and attendants said they had not received any instructions to cut the price.

January's new tax - which the government says will be used to fund road repairs - is small in itself at only 1.5 naira (1 euro cent/1.2 cents) per litre, but has been condemned as a dictatorial measure by the unions.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2004


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