Nigeria in crisis as fuel protests grow

A MOB torched an Islamic school in southern Nigeria as the second day of a national strike over fuel prices locked down the country, fanned religious tensions and unnerved the global oil market.

The two-day-old general strike has not yet affected the output of Africa’s top oil producer but it has paralysed the country and sent the government, already battling a brutal campaign by an Islamist group, into crisis mode.

The strike started on Monday by labour unions upset over high fuel prices in Africa’s most populous nation. Gas prices have risen from $1.70 (€1.33) per gallon to $3.50 per gallon since the subsidy on fuel ended on January 1 after orders from President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration.

That spurred a spike in food and transportation prices across a country where most live on less than $2 a day

Attackers burnt part of a mosque complex in the southern city of Benin, where clashes killed five, bringing to 11 the number of people killed since the strike started on Monday.

“We have recorded so far five deaths — on both sides, those that have been attacked and the attackers,” said Dan Enowogh-omwenwa, secretary general of the Nigerian Red Cross in Edo state, told AFP.

He said 10,000 people had been displaced by the violence.

Witnesses said an Islamic school adjacent to the mosque was burned, as was a bus parked outside.

The attacks in Benin started amid protests when a crowd separated from the demonstration to attack a mosque and residents of Hausa neighbourhoods.

Hausas are the largest ethnic group in Nigeria’s north and are mostly Muslims.

The Red Cross official could not specify who was behind the attacks, saying there were “indigenes” targeting northerners.

Police patrolled streets and the displaced were evacuated to safety in army barracks and inside the monarch’s palace.

Africa’s most populous nation is roughly divided between a predominantly Christian south and mainly Muslim north.

Recent violence targeting Christians in the north and blamed on Islamist group Boko Haram has sparked fears of a wider religious conflict, as well as warnings from Christian leaders that they will defend themselves.

Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka warned that his country was heading towards a conflict akin to the 1960s war.

“It’s not an unrealistic comparison — it’s certainly based on many similarities... We see the nation heading towards a civil war,” he said.

Elsewhere, gangs set up burning roadblocks, police fired tear gas and businesses shut as the strike paralysed Nigeria.