LAGOS (AFP) - Defiant Nigerian union leaders took their nationwide general strike into a third day and gave no sign of faltering over their demand that President Olusegun Obasanjo find a way to slash fuel prices.
"We will continue our mobilisation today, the struggle is in the best interests of the people," declared Owei Lakemfa, chief spokesman of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), the umbrella union leading the strike.
"The NLC is satisfied with the progress so far. Nigerians are cooperating despite official intimidation and harassment," he said.
For its part, the government sent its lawyers to the federal high court in Abuja in a bid to get the protest declared illegal.
The NLC had planned to end its "warning strike" on Thursday and hold a two-week pause in protests to allow the government time to respond to the strikers' demand that last month's 25-percent hike in petrol prices be reversed.
But on Tuesday, with much of the economic life of this nation of 130 million people paralysed, NLC leader Adams Oshiomhole warned that the protest may be prolonged if Obasanjo's security forces try to arrest or intimidate strikers.
Unions blame the police for Monday's death of a 12-year-old boy, Sani Hamisu, who was shot during a street protest in the northern city of Kaduna, and accused the security forces of rounding-up some of their activists.
By Wednesday some small-time market traders and private businesses were beginning to reopen in the commercial capital Lagos, but banks, offices, petrol stations and public services were closed or running skeletal services.
On September 23, petrol and diesel prices leapt by around 25 percent to 55 naira (around 40 cents) per litre, the latest in a series of major increases since October last year, when Obasanjo halted subsidies and a price cap.
The president argues that his programme of economic deregulation, while leading to some short-term hardship, will lay the foundations for lasting growth and free up funds for schools, roads, hospitals and power stations.
On Tuesday, Obasanjo unveiled a 2005 budget which increases public spending by almost one quarter and predicts an annual growth rate of seven percent.
But Nigeria is the world's sixth largest exporter of crude, and with oil prices at an all-time high, workers are in no mood to be told that they must tighten their belts and wait for prosperity to filter down to them.
Obasanjo predicted that thanks to the high oil price his government would have a budget surplus of 4.6 billion dollars by the end of the year, but said that this would largely be saved to cushion against crude falling in the future.
International markets have been watching the strike closely, concerned that if Nigeria's daily exports of around 2.5 million barrels per day are disrupted then oil prices could continue to climb beyond 54 dollars per barrel.
But so far both the unions and oil companies have said that exports have remained unaffected.