Nigeria army outpost attacked in northeast, 2 dead

Thursday, January 19, 2012

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria -- Nigeria's military says gunmen from a radical Islamist sect attacked an army outpost in the country's northeast, killing two people.

The attack Wednesday morning occurred near Maiduguri, the Borno state capital and the spiritual home for the sect known as Boko Haram. A witness said a soldier and a hospital worker died in the attack.

Col. Victor Ebhaleme confirmed the attack, but declined to give further details.

These are just the latest killings blamed on the sect, which this year alone have been blamed for at least 76 deaths, according to an Associated Press count.

The sect has been waging an increasingly bloody sectarian battle against Nigeria's weak central government.

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Suspected mastermind behind Nigeria church bombings escapes in shootout

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

ABUJA, Nigeria –  The suspected mastermind of the Christmas Day bombing of a Catholic church in Nigeria escaped custody after being arrested in the country's capital, police acknowledged Tuesday -- an embarrassment for a nation struggling to contain increasingly bloody sectarian attacks by a radical Islamist sect.

Authorities said Kabiru Sokoto planned the bombing that killed 38 people at St. Theresa Catholic Church in Madalla, just outside Nigeria's capital Abuja. But his arrest at the mansion of a state governor in Abuja, and subsequent escape, raised more questions about the government's ability to stop the radical sect, known as Boko Haram, which claimed responsibility for the church attack.

Federal police spokesman Olusola Amore said in statement that a local commissioner ordered Sokoto transferred to another police station in Abaji, just outside of Abuja and that the policemen escorting him were attacked by suspected sect gang members who freed him.

Commanders have suspended the local police commissioner and are investigating his actions, as well as those of the officers guarding Sokoto, Amore said.

Amore did not say whether there were injuries suffered in the attack. He could not be immediately reached for comment.

The statement did not address Sokoto's arrest occurring at the official compound of the Borno state governor in Abuja as widely reported in the media. Borno state, in Nigeria's arid and dusty northeast, is Boko Haram's spiritual home.

The Christmas Day bombing targeted target worshippers at a Catholic church as they were leaving Mass, witnesses said. It was one of several attacks that day that killed at least 42 people, drawing worldwide criticism and new attention to Boko Haram.

The sect has carried out increasingly sophisticated and bloody attacks in its campaign to implement strict Shariah law across Nigeria, a multiethnic nation of more than 160 million people. Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is sacrilege" in the local Hausa language, is responsible for at least 510 killings last year alone, according to an Associated Press count.

So far this year, the group, that has warned it will kill Christians living in Nigeria's predominantly Muslim north, has been blamed for at least 74 killings. That has further inflamed religious and ethnic tensions in Nigeria, which has seen ethnic violence kill thousands in recent years.

Boko Haram also claimed responsibility an August suicide car bombing that targeted the U.N. headquarters in the capital, killing 25 people and wounding more than 100.

In a video released last week, Imam Abubakar Shekau a Boko Haram leader, said the government could not handle attacks by the group.

Though President Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian from southern Nigeria, has declared emergency rule in some regions, the sect is blamed for almost daily attacks.

Jonathan has said he believes the sect has infiltrated security agencies and government offices in the country, though he has offered no evidence to back up the claim.

On Tuesday, authorities blamed Boko Haram gunmen for killing seven people in three separate attacks. Gunmen shot dead two soldiers distributing food to other service members, Borno state police commissioner Simeone Midenda said.

Two others were killed Monday when gunmen invaded their homes, military field operation officer Col. Victor Ebhaleme said. In Damaturu in nearby Yobe state, gunmen from the sect shot and killed three more people from Chad on Monday, Yobe state police chief Tanko Lawan said.

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Nigeria Rolls Back Gas Price After Protests - New York Times

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

After the announcement, Nigerian unions said they had suspended their walkout and street protests. A statement from the Nigeria Labor Congress said that union leaders had decided “that in order to save lives and in the interest of national survival, these mass actions be suspended.”

In a speech on the state-run Nigerian Television Authority, the president said the price would drop to about $2.75 a gallon, still higher than the $1.70 that Nigerians had been paying before the government eliminated subsidies on Jan. 1 in a highly unpopular decision.

The government said it was revoking the fuel subsidies to put public finances on a sounder footing, but the move prompted tens of thousands of protesters to fill the streets of Nigerian cities. The police used live ammunition to disperse protests in Kano and other places; at least three people were killed, and Amnesty International denounced what it said was excessive use of force by the authorities.

Nigerians emerged from their homes this weekend to find the fragile calculus underpinning most people’s lives in the country further threatened.

The price of onions has more than doubled because of the cost of getting them to market. Dried crawfish, hot peppers and watermelon seed are twice as expensive. Lines of cars stretched far down dingy blocks in the gray winter haze, waiting to pay about $3.50 a gallon for gasoline that cost just $1.70 on New Year’s Eve.

The standoff among the Nigerian government, the labor unions and the street continued Sunday, with vows of more strikes unless the government backed down.

At the grimy Iddo Market in Lagos, a long line of rickety open stalls under a highway overpass, the mood over the weekend was wary. Housewives bustled about the piles of yams and tomatoes for the first time in a week.

“Everything is just double, triple the price,” said Segun Nisi, shaking her head over the cost of watermelon seeds, whose oil is used in cooking here. Similar reactions boded ill for the government’s policy course.

Nigeria produces immense oil wealth, but analysts say that for decades, billions of dollars from the country’s oil earnings have been stolen by a corrupt elite while three-quarters of the country’s citizens live on about a dollar a day. Government-subsidized gasoline has been almost the only benefit from oil production to reach the wider population.

Some local commentators saw the widespread protests over fuel as the beginning of a “Nigerian Spring.” But they were another headache for a country that is already faced with an insurrection by armed Islamic militants in the north, sectarian tensions in the middle and perpetual restiveness in the oil-producing south. At Iddo, Mrs. Nisi was dressed up for shopping — a shiny white blouse, embroidered black cap — after a week of closed stores and markets. But the experience was not making her sympathetic to the government’s plan. And the seed vendor was not budging from his new price. “We are just suffering here, and the people at the top are enjoying their life,” Mrs. Nisi said. “They are just making people too crazy.”

Even the country’s oil workers threatened to strike, which could affect world energy markets if the country’s exports are crimped. One analyst said a strike lasting several weeks could push up oil prices by $10 to $20 a barrel.

At the root of the trouble is a paradox that some see as emblematic of the country’s 50 years of independence: Nigeria is one of the world’s leading crude oil exporters, but it must import nearly all of its gasoline from foreign refineries because years of neglect, mismanagement and corruption have left the country’s own refineries unable to function. The government subsidies, which approached $8 billion, made up the difference between the world market price and the lower price that Nigerians had been paying at the pump, while the middlemen who imported the gasoline made huge profits.

In a 2009 report, the International Monetary Fund called the removal of the fuel subsidy “an important first step.” But in a place where experts estimate that $50 billion to $100 billion in oil revenue has been lost through fraud and that 80 percent of the economic benefit from oil production has flowed to 1 percent of the population, the monetary fund’s approval of a step that hits ordinary people so hard looks provocative.

At Iddo, Mabel Ekewke eyed five small baskets of onions. Before, they would have cost about 1,000 nairas (about $6.25), she said; now the vendor was asking 2,500 nairas ($15.50).

Richard Berry contributed reporting from Paris.

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Nigeria labor says no agreement to end fuel strike

Monday, January 16, 2012

ABUJA, Nigeria –  Nigeria's government and labor unions failed Saturday night to end a paralyzing nationwide strike over high gasoline costs, potentially sparking an oil production shutdown in a nation vital to U.S. oil supplies.

It was not immediately clear early Sunday whether a major oil workers' union had gone ahead with its threat to have its members walk off their jobs starting at midnight in an effort to halt oil production.

Nigeria, which produces 2.4 milion barrels of oil a day, is the fifth-largest oil exporter to the United States. Any disruption to oil production could roil the oil futures market at a time traders remain concerned about world supply.

President Goodluck Jonathan did not show up for a meeting with union representatives held Saturday night at the presidential villa in Nigeria's capital Abuja, nor did Vice President Namadi Sambo. Instead, the nation's Senate president and its House speaker represented the government along with other officials.

After the meeting, Nigeria Labor Congress President Abdulwaheed Omar told waiting journalists: "We have not reached a compromise."

Asked whether oil production would immediately halt, Omar said: "We are taking these things gradually."

Nigeria has been gripped by a paralyzing strike since Monday when labor unions called the nationwide work stoppage in response to a government decision to remove subsidies, causing fuel prices to more than double in Africa's most populous nation. However, oil workers mostly remained on the job.

On Thursday, the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria threatened to stop all oil production in Nigeria at midnight Saturday. President Babatunde Ogun and other union officials were not immediately available to confirm whether its members had left their posts.

The union's ability to enforce a shutdown across the swamps of Nigeria's southern delta to its massive offshore oil fields remains in question. But the threat of a strike caused jitters on global oil markets Friday.

The strike began Monday, paralyzing the nation of more than 160 million people. The root cause remains gasoline prices: President Goodluck Jonathan's government abandoned subsidies that kept gasoline prices low on Jan. 1, causing prices to spike from $1.70 per gallon (45 cents per liter) to at least $3.50 per gallon (94 cents per liter). The costs of food and transportation also largely doubled in a nation where most people live on less than $2 a day.

Anger over losing one of the few benefits average Nigerians see from being an oil-rich country, as well as disgust over government corruption, have led to demonstrations across this nation and violence that has killed at least 10 people. Red Cross volunteers have treated more than 600 people injured in protests since the strike began, the International Committee of the Red Cross said Friday.

Even if strikers are only partially successful, fears of tightened global supplies could raise oil prices by $5-$10 per barrel on futures markets next week. Gasoline prices would follow, rising by as much as 10 cents per gallon and forcing U.S. drivers to spend an additional $36 million a day at the pump.

Experts predict the national average in the U.S. could rise as high as $4.25 per gallon ($1.12 a liter) in 2012.

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Nigeria labor announces suspension of fuel strike

LAGOS, Nigeria –  Unions suspended their nationwide strike on Monday, hours after Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan partially reinstated subsidies to keep gasoline prices low and deployed soldiers in the streets to halt widening demonstrations.

Union leaders described their decision as a victory for labor, allowing its leaders to guide the country's policy on fuel subsidies in the future while having gas prices drop to about $2.27 a gallon.

However, many protesters joined the demonstrations with hopes of seeing gas return to its previous price of about $1.70 per gallon, while also speaking out against a culture of government corruption in Africa's most populous nation. Deploying soldiers to the streets stopped demonstrators from gathering on Monday. At one point soldiers fired over the heads of marchers. But Jonathan may still have to deal with populist rage that swept the country in recent days, and the use of the military in a nation with a history of military coups stoked immediate controversy.

"This is a clear case of intolerance and shutting of the democratic space against the people of Nigeria which must be condemned by all democracy-loving people around the world," read a statement from the Save Nigeria Group, which has organized massive demonstrations in Lagos.

The Nigeria Labor Congress and the Trade Union Congress told journalists on Monday in Nigeria's capital Abuja they applauded the government's recent promise to explore corruption in the country's oil sector. They described the six-day strike a success.

"We are sure that no government or institution will take Nigerians for granted again," said Abdulwaheed Omar, the president of the Nigeria Labor Congress.

But while Jonathan offered an olive branch to unions with the gas price relief, he used military power to make sure no one protested against the government Monday. In a rare display of military might, soldiers took over major highways and road junctions throughout Lagos, home to 15 million people, and Kano, Nigeria's second-largest city.

In an early Monday morning address aired on state-run television, Jonathan warned that provocateurs were using the gas-price protest to cause instability.

"It has become clear to government and all well-meaning Nigerians that other interests beyond the implementation of the deregulation policy have hijacked the protest. ... These same interests seek to promote discord, anarchy and insecurity to the detriment of public peace," Jonathan said.

Labor organizers had urged workers to stay home on Monday after Jonathan appealed to them over the possibility of insecurity in the country. At the Lagos headquarters of the Nigeria Labor Congress, some 50 protesters gathered anyway. Lawyer Bamidele Aturu led the crowd in chants and cheers, comparing the president to military rulers of the past who used soldiers to suppress dissent.

"It's very clear the revolution has begun!" Aturu shouted. However, those gathered looked warily at passing pickup trucks filled with soldiers.

On Monday, hundreds of people started marching toward Lagos' Ojota neighborhood, where tens of thousands of protesters had gathered in recent days. However, soldiers had already taken positions there overnight, waving away would-be demonstrators. Two military armored personnel carriers were parked near an empty stage.

The crowd passed soldiers who slung their assault rifles over their shoulders, allowing them to pass. But as they drew closer to Ojota, around 20 soldiers arrived in two pickup trucks to cut them off, bayonets affixed to their assault rifles. They told the protesters to go back and some of them began to turn around.

Soldiers fired into the air and tear gassed the crowd to disperse it, leaving protesters running through the stinging gas as gunshots echoed down the highway.

Meanwhile, authorities also targeted some foreign media outlets in Lagos. Officers of the State Security Service, Nigeria's secret police, raided an office compound Monday used by the BBC and CNN, witnesses said. Marilyn Ogar, a secret police spokeswoman, said she had no information about the raid.

The strike began Jan. 9, paralyzing the nation of more than 160 million people. Tens of thousands of people protested in cities across Nigeria. At least 10 people were killed. Red Cross volunteers have treated more than 600 people injured in protests since the strike began, officials said.

Though an oil workers association threatened to cut Nigeria's production of 2.4 million barrels of crude a day, they held off on shutdown onshore and offshore oil fields. Such a shutdown could have shaken oil futures, as Nigeria is the fifth-largest crude supplier to the U.S.

An offshore rig being run for a Chevron Corp. subsidiary near Nigeria's oil-rich southern delta caught fire and officials tried to account for all the workers there, the oil company said. Chevron spokesman Scott Walker said the fire started early Monday morning. There was no indication that the fire was related to Nigeria's unrest.

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Nigeria labor says no agreement to end fuel strike

Nigeria's government and labor unions failed Saturday night to end a paralyzing nationwide strike over high gasoline costs, potentially sparking an oil production shutdown in a nation vital to U.S. oil supplies.

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