Occupy Nigeria victory: president to cut fuel prices

Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan announced today that his government would reduce gasoline prices in the country after weeks of protests and strikes.

Gas prices spiked after Mr. Jonathan's government removed fuel subsidies earlier this month. High gas prices were not the only effect: the costs of food and transportation nearly doubled as well, crippling the economy and impairing a population that largely lives on less than $2 a day.

Folenke's food shop, in the heart of Lagos, was nearly empty last week because she couldn’t afford to go to the wholesale market to restock the bare shelves. Tarek Shams, station manager for Egyptian Air at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, looked shell-shocked as he tried to explain to angry passengers why he had already decided to cancel the flight out of Lagos the following Tuesday.

"I cannot face tomorrow what I faced today," he says, explaining that his workers had to have an armed police escort to deliver fuel to the one Egyptian Air flight that landed and departed Lagos last Monday. As the airline workers were transferring fuel, Mr. Shams says, they were greeted by union protesters burning debris in the road.

Welcome to the brave new world of Nigerian shock-therapy economics.

On Jan. 1, the Nigerian government decided to remove fuel subsidies, with President Jonathan saying they prevent government from spending in other areas, such as building roads, maintaining schools, and keeping the electric power grid running.

Economists such as the International Monetary Fund's Christine Lagarde and Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs have praised the move, but citizens reacted with a mixture of anger and bewilderment. A series of rolling strikes started Jan. 9, shutting whole cities around the country.

Big oil exporter must import gasoline

The fuel-subsidy protests, organized mostly by Nigeria's socialist and labor movements and taking on the name Occupy Nigeria, were just the latest hurdle for President Jonathan's administration. In early January, the militant Islamist group Boko Haram warned Christians, whose population is concentrated in the north, to leave northern Nigeria or face attack. Since then, more than 50 people have been killed, most of them Christians. While Jonathan has publicly condemned the attacks, many northern Nigerians, and particularly local Christian leaders, feel he is not doing enough.

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