Nigeria

10 years since the murder of Ken Saro-Wiwa

By Cathy Nugent In November 1995 Ken Saro-Wiwa, the best known leader of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, was executed by the Nigerian government. The Ogoni are an ethnic minority of 500,000 who live in about 350 square miles in the impoverished Niger river delta region of Nigeria. Saro-Wiwa, a novelist and TV producer, was killed, along with eight other Ogoni activists, because they seriously challenged Nigeria’s status quo — they wanted to stop the oil companies, in collusion with the government, destroying the environment and lives of the Niger delta people. Over forty...

Nigerian general strike

Unions in Nigeria organised a general strike on 16 November after the government failed to cut petrol prices. Workers were protesting at a 23% rise in petrol, diesel and kerosene prices in September. Unions said a government concession to cut kerosene prices was insufficient. A Nigerian court ruled against the strike but unions ignored the ruling. A four-day nationwide strike in October shut down banks, businesses, shops and public services. Unions targeted crude oil production and exports as part of the stoppage. Nigeria is the world’s seventh-largest oil producer and the strike disrupted the...

Nigeria on fire

Mark Sandell looks at Nigeria’s wave of general strikes A burnt out skyscraper juts into the skyline of Lagos Island, the commercial heart of Nigeria’s biggest city. It is the remains of the Nigerian oil ministry. This burnt-out building is a fitting monument for today’s Nigeria. In its shadow the workers of Lagos, like other Nigerians suffer, grinding poverty. Forty eight per cent of the population live below the poverty line. Seventy per cent of people live on less than $1 a day. Average life expectancy is 47 for men and 49 for women. The World Bank ranks Nigeria as the 13th poorest country...

General strike in Nigeria

Nigerian trade unions organised a four-day general strike against fuel price rises in October, and have vowed to call an indefinite stoppage if the government fails to lower the price of petrol. The strike shut down banks, businesses, shops and public services. Fuel costs have been rising — petrol by 25% — since President Obasanjo deregulated the sector a year ago and removed government subsidies. Despite Nigeria’s oil wealth, most of the population lives in poverty. Two-thirds live on less than a dollar a day and many see cheap fuel as the only benefit they receive. This is the third general...

Workers of the world Round up

By Pablo Velasco Inside: Strike wave in South Korea Soldiers terrorise workers Haitian workers Victory for Colombian banana workers' strike General strike in Nigeria stops petrol price rises Strike wave in South Korea Korean taxi drivers and metal workers went on strike this month for wage increases and better working conditions, joining hospital workers on their week-long walkout. About 4,600 drivers of the Korean Federation of Taxi Workers' Unions, an affiliate of the independent Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), are demanding the introduction of a minimum wage, a strengthened...

Defend Amina Lawal against stoning to death!

By Faz Velmi Amina Lawal, a Nigerian woman sentenced to death by stoning for 'adultery', must wait until June to hear her fate. Her appeal hearing against her sentence was due in late March but was adjourned when only three of the five required tribunal members were available. There are suggestions that the trial was deliberately delayed until after Nigeria's elections -recently concluded-took place. Amina is being persecuted under the Sharia (Islamic law) penal code recently introduced in a number of northern Nigerian states. The "evidence" of Amina's "crime" was that she bore a child outside...

Miss World can flee to England: millions of Nigerians can't

By Nicole Ashford An estimated 200 people have died and tens of thousands have been left homeless in the riots sparked by the Miss World contest in Nigeria. There is a long history of conflict between Muslims in northern Nigeria and the mainly Christian south. Islamist influence has been growing in the Muslim areas of the country, and an increasing number of states are adopting sharia law - bringing them into conflict with the national government. The recent trouble began after a newspaper suggested that the Prophet Mohammed would not have disapproved of Miss World and might even have married...

Beauty queens' boycott for Amina

You probably wouldn't expect Miss World contestants to be leading the way in fighting for women's rights. But already seven beauty queens have announced that they will boycott this year's Miss World contest, due to be held in Nigeria in November, in protest at the sentence of death by stoning handed down to single mother Amina Lawal ) under sharia law. Amina was sentenced to death in March 2002 after admitting having had a child while divorced. A first appeal against her sentence was rejected on 19 August, and she is now appealing to a higher court. Contestants from Belgium, France, Norway...

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