Nigeria: general strike beats back oil price rise
13 June 2004

A general strike brought Nigeria to a standstill last week.

For three days, workers across the country refused to work to protest against yet another hike in the price of oil. The strike was in response to the government of President Olesugun Obansanjo increasing the price of oil to more than 50 naira a litre, a 20 per cent hike in price (about 20 pence, the average yearly income is about £170).

It had been called to last for 21 days but was called off after three days because the strike leaders said that the oil price was falling across the country to the “more reasonable” 41 naira. Nigeria is the eighth biggest net oil producer in the world and cheap fuel and kerosene for heating is the only benefit the mass of ordinary Nigerians receive from their natural wealth.

The strike was called by the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), which organises 27 of the country’s biggest blue collar unions such as the oil and transport workers. The strike was supported by white collar Trade Unions Congress (TUC), the Congress of Free Trade Unions, and other organisations such as the National Association of Nigeria Students, National Association of Nigerian Traders, Ijaw National Congress, and Afenifere, the Yoruba socio-political group.

Earlier this year, an NLC threatened general strike was bought off by the government by promises of joint negotiations over any price rises. However, at the end of May the government unilaterally increased the price by 20 per cent. The three days of the strike saw a solid and courageous display of militancy by the workers of Nigeria. All the major industrial and commercial centres were closed including industry, banks, central and local government, markets and schools and colleges.

The commercial centre Lagos and the capital Abuja both ground to a halt. The workers showed bravery against Government and police intimidation and used a variety of ingenious tactics to enforce the strike.

• The strike took place in the face of the federal High Court asking the NLC to not to go on strike while directing the Government to revert to the old price of N38 per litre of petrol. This time however, unlike earlier this year, the strike leaders said they would not wait for any court action and would go out anyway. NLC president Adams Oshiomhole apologised for past mistakes and said that the strike would go ahead despite the wishes of the court or any potential meeting with government.

• Strikers showed excellent discipline and fought off government attempts at intimidation such as the “no work, no pay” order put out to frighten civil servants back to their offices. Civil servants in Enugu state, in the South, told the press that they could not act on the court ruling without a directive from the NLC. "We in the labour movement have our own leaders who represent us and fight for our interests and they are the ones to tell us what to do in the prevailing situation."• Members of the Commercial Motorcyclists Association were used to travel around to inspect petrol stations to ensure that they were adhering to the strike.

• Convoys of cars and vans filled with strikers were used as flying pickets to descend on anywhere that was breaking the strike. In one incident, 40 vehicles descended on a station that was selling fuel and strikers chased away the petrol attendants. The strikers gave free fuel to all vehicles in the queue.

• Strikers also had to defend the NLC headquarters from 100 police who attacked and killed two strikers and arrested six union leaders. The NLC members barricaded themselves in the building and fought off the police attack.

• The widespread support for and compliance with the strike among the workers even led to oil sellers organisation and the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation from calling on the Government not to go ahead with the price rise. In the face of all this magnificent militancy however the union leaders did their best to get the workers back to work.

On day one of the dispute, leader of the NLC Oshiomhole said that unless the price went down to 38 naira a litre there would be no deal and no return to work. By the second day of the strike he said that although the price was falling in places the decrease was not widespread enough:

"We went round Abuja area today and yesterday and we saw some evidence of compliance. But in other parts of the country the evidence is still not there. And so given the fact that we all started the strike at the same time, while we have all noticed a substantial attempt in Abuja to comply, unfortunately this is not the case in most parts, the overwhelming parts. 

"That being so, we regret that the strike will have to continue until the compliance goes round the whole nation. And by the third day, the NLC met the other striking organisations such as the TUC and ethnic groups and said they would return to work because, in the words of Oshiomhole, "We've seen substantial evidence that many petrol stations have adjusted their prices to reflect the court order. Therefore, the labour unions and the civil society groups have agreed that we hereby suspend the strike," he added.

The price in some areas had fallen to between 41-43 naira but not to the 38 naira that Oshiomhole was holding out for on the first day. Some groups who supported the strike attacked the NLC calling it off. Citizens Rights Watch said that the NLC was not in a position to call off the strike. It called for the strike to continue until the price fell to 38 naira, demanded the resignation of Obansanjo and called for a sovereign national conference to decide on the government of the country.

The National Democratic Movement also attacked the ending of the strike saying that it could have pushed the government into wider social reforms. The widespread support for the strike, its strength and its ability to shutdown the economy show the power of the working class. It also put the NLC, despite its leadership, at the head of the movement against the government. The blue collar workers pulled in behind them a range of other unions and other ethnic and cultural organisations some of which such as the Ijaw have fought terrible and vicious battles with the government.

However, the Nigerian workers have been let down by their leaders yet again. The strike could have achieved so much more than a partial climbdown by the government. That there are organisations now criticising the NLC for refusing to continue the strike indicates that there are forces aware that the workers and their allies must offer and struggle for an alternative to the current pro-IMF government. Since his re-election Obansanjo has set himself the goal of reducing the $2 billion of subsidies that keep fuel prices low and carry out widescale privatisation to please his IMF backers.

Last year, the price of oil was N28 a litre, it is now just over 4O and there is every indication that the government will try to hike the price again. The next attack must be faced with a leadership far more resolute than the existing one and for that the workers need their own workers party. An important step in this direction has been taken with the NLC launching a Labour Party earlier this year, which gives the workers their own alternative to the bourgeois parties such as Obansanjo’s People’s Democratic Party.

But rather then becoming a UK-style Labour Party ie a reformist one, the Nigerian workers and their allies such as the fighting youth of the Ijaws and other ethnic groups need a party that is revolutionary in policy and in deed. Revolutionary socialists should work alongside workers and unions and build the labour party as a mass organisation. But at every opportunity revolutionaries must put forward clear class answers to the attacks of the government and to the betrayals and misleadership of the union and ethnic leaders.

Then, there is the possibility of building a mass revolutionary party that can save Nigeria from the multinationals, the poverty and despair and inter-ethnic strife and build a socialist future.