Nigeria's powerful trades union movement Tuesday launched a week of rallies against plans to raise the price of fuel as the government called for urgent talks.
The trades union umbrella organisation, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), chose this northern city for the launch of a programme of nationwide rallies due to end on March 29 in Abuja.
NLC Deputy President Isa Tijjani led a march of 15,000 NLC supporters to the government house in Kano and handed in a letter of protest to State Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso.
The marchers carried banners protesting plans by the government of President Olusegun Obasanjo to raise fuel prices and deregulate the crisis-ridden sector.
"Obasanjo save Nigeria," said one banner. "Subsidy not deregulate", said another. A third said: "Deregulation a threat to democracy."
In Abuja, the government's labour ministry told AFP that Obasanjo had invited labour leaders to talks -- provisionally scheduled for Thursday or Friday -- aimed at averting the protests.
The government was worried by the protests and the potential for unrest, officials said.
"Government is worried about the NLC's action," and has invited the labour leaders for talks, Labour Ministry spokesman Alphonsus Okoroafor told AFP.
"We have invited them for talks. I hope at the end of the meeting, good reason will prevail and the protests will be called off," he said.
NLC General Secretary John Odah told AFP Monday that the protest rallies would be peaceful but said that if the government insists on deregulating the sector the unions will make Nigeria "ungovernable".
The governmnent has for years subsidised the price of fuel in Nigeria, currently at an official 22 naira a litre.
However, as the international price of oil has risen and the dollar has strengthened against local currencies, the price of fuel in Nigeria has fallen far behind the regional average.
The result is smuggling of fuel out of Nigeria or hoarding within the country in order to resell at the roadside at higher prices.
Hoarding is particularly widespread in northern Nigeria, which has only one partially working refinery, and few filling stations here admit to having fuel for sale at 22 naira a litre.
Nonetheless, opposition to any increase in the official price -- and a later deregulation -- is intense.
The greatest opposition is in the southwest, which is the best served in terms of fuel, and where a protest rally is due in the economic capital Lagos on Wednesday.
Lagos police Monday declared the planned rally illegal but the NLC said that it would go ahead to organise it.
Last June, the government attempted to increase fuel prices from 20 to 30 naira a litre but was forced to back down after a five-day general strike organised by the NLC.
But it said in a report last month that only abolishing the current price subsidy and deregulating the sector will end the persistent fuel scarcities in a country that is a major crude oil exporter.
And it vowed again this week to go ahead.
For years, fuel shortages have been widespread around Nigeria, leading to mile-long queues at filling stations and disruption to lives and businesses -- KANO, Nigeria (AFP)
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