Petrol Price Hike: Nigerians hold strike, march in protest

Hundreds marched through major Nigerian cities on Wednesday on the first day of a nationwide strike called to protest the removal of a petrol subsidy and demand a new minimum wage but businesses remained open, though with reduced traffic in some spots.

Since being sworn into office on May 29, President Bola Tinubu has embarked on the country’s boldest reforms in decades, scrapping the popular but expensive subsidy, which cost $10 billion last year, and relaxing foreign exchange regime.

While the reforms have been welcomed by investors, unions say they have led to soaring costs at a time when Nigerians are already grappling with the highest inflation in nearly two decades.

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Placard-carrying protesters led by union leaders marched in Lagos, oil-producing state of Bayelsa and the northern cities of Kano and Kaduna.

“Today’s protest is just the beginning and warning to the government. We give them one week to listen to our demands,” said Auwal Musa Muhammad, chairman for electricity workers union in Kano.

In the capital Abuja, marchers broke down a gate to the National Assembly, where they expected to be addressed by the Senate President, witnesses said. There were no reports of other incidents.

Union officials handed petitions to government officials in several states detailing their grievances.

While Tinubu has said the petrol subsidy benefited the country’s elites, Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) said ending the fuel subsidy was a hasty decision made without any plan to cushion the impact on the poor.

“Every family feels the fang of the harsh policies of government which has resulted in the astronomical increase in transportation, food, goods and services, tuition fees, rising costs of accessing quality healthcare, just to name but a few,” the NLC said in a statement on Wednesday.

In Lagos, businesses were open, including the branches of supermarket chains Pick n Pay and Shoprite. At a market in the Obalende neighbourhood, vegetable sellers went about their business, haggling with customers over prices.

The NLC and the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Nigeria’s two main federations, represent millions of workers across most sectors of Africa’s biggest economy, including parts of the oil industry.

The unions have said the strike will last one week, but they may struggle to sustain the protest as tens of millions are employed in largely informal sectors of the economy that have no union representation.