LAGOS (AFP) - Nigeria's senior labour leader called for an indefinite general strike in protest at rising fuel prices and warned that workers would disrupt exports of crude oil from Africa's biggest producer.
Adams Oshiomhole, president of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), said that trade unions and a coalition of civil society groups would launch a nationwide stoppage from November 18 and would target the oil sector.
"On November 16 the strike shall begin and it shall be indefinite. The government has made dialogue impossible," Oshiomhole told reporters after meeting with all the groups involved in the protest.
Labour has demanded that President Olusegun Obasanjo reintroduce fuel subsidies in order to cut the pump price of petrol and diesel back to its level on September 23, when it jumped by 25 percent to 55 naira (about 40 cents).
But government insists that fuel deregulation is a key plank of its reform programme and has refused to do more than soften the impact of the price hike by cutting tax on public transport and offering cheap loans to road hauliers.
The unions brought Nigeria to a halt between October 11 and 14 in what they called a "warning strike" in protest at the fuel price increase.
The strike paralysed economic life in major cities but did not disrupt oil exports, which account for more than 95 percent of Nigeria's foreign revenue.
Next month, however, the unions intend things to be different.
"All the oil workers will be involved in the strike. Last time there was no disruption of the upstream oil sector. Now the only way for the government to listen is to interrupt the oil flow," Oshiomhole said.
With exports of 2.5 million barrels per day, Nigeria is Africa's biggest oil producer and the sixth biggest in the world. Its sweet, light crude is ideal for refining into petrol, and it supplies 15 percent of the key US market.
Earlier this month oil prices hit an all-time high of around 55 dollars a barrel amid militant violence in Nigeria, strike threats in Norway, unrest in Iraq, hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico and surging Chinese demand.
Rates last week fell back to less than 50 dollars, but the prospect of a Nigerian strike will increase upward pressure when the market reopens Monday.
The leader of Nigeria's white-collar oil union, PENGASSAN, was more cautious than Oshiomhole but confirmed its intention to target the production sector.
"We will try to disrupt production, but we cannot reveal all our arsenal before the beginning of the movement. We decided to move against production because we have no other option," said PENGASSAN president Brown Ogbeifun.
And in another move likely to increase tensions in the sector, the NLC and PENGASSAN declared country's biggest oil major, the Anglo-Dutch giant Shell, to be what Oshiomhole dubbed an "enemy of the Nigerian people".
"Shell has decided to side with the government to oppress our people and to mix themselves into Nigerian internal politics," Oshiomhole alleged.
Union leaders said that Shell had taken legal action to try to prevent PENGASSAN from joining the strike, and called for protests outside the Lagos Federal High Court on Monday when the case is due to be heard.
The unions also plan to hold protest rallies in the build-up to strike day, notably on Wednesday in the teeming commercial capital Lagos.
Oshiomhole said that the strike itself would have been earlier, but that the coalition had wanted to allow Nigeria's Muslims -- around half of the country's 130 million people -- to finish their celebration of Ramadan first.
As the strike was declared, Obasanjo was in Tokyo ahead of the Africa-Asia Trade and Investment Conference. He is not due to return until Thursday.
Although Nigeria earns billions of dollars every year from exporting crude oil, its domestic refineries have been laid waste by corruption and mismanagment and it relies on expensive imports of refined fuels.
Traditionally governments have therefore subsidised retail sales of petrol, diesel and kerosene to their people, more than three-quarters of whom live in abject poverty on less than one dollar per day.
But in October last year Obasanjo announced a phasing out of subsidies, declaring that the money would be better spent on schools and hospitals. The decision proved unpopular and has triggered a series of strikes and protests.
10/31/2004 - 19:14 GMT - AFP