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Akintunde Akinleye / Reuters
Protesters hold placards and shout slogans on Ikorodu road in Nigeria's commercial capital, Lagos, Jan. 3, 2012. Hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets to protest the recent increase in fuel prices after a government subsidy was removed.
Sunday Alamba / AP
A man walks past a fire burning on a major road during a fuel subsidy protest in Lagos, Nigeria, Jan. 3, 2012. Angry mobs of protesters stopped gas station owners from selling fuel Tuesday while others lit a bonfire on a major highway in an attempt to thwart the government's removal of a cherished consumer subsidy that had kept gas affordable for more than two decades.
Akintunde Akinleye / Reuters
Policemen beat up a protester during a rally against the removal of the fuel subsidy in Nigeria's commercial capital Lagos Jan. 3, 2012. Hundreds of demonstrators in Nigeria's commercial capital Lagos shut petrol stations, formed human barriers along motorways and hijacked buses on Tuesday in protest against the shock doubling of fuel prices after a government subsidy was removed.
AP reports:
An angry mob protesting spiraling fuel prices assaulted a soldier Tuesday and one man was killed at a demonstration elsewhere, signs of growing unrest over the government's hugely unpopular decision to end a subsidy program that had kept gas costs down for more than two decades.
An Associated Press reporter at the scene in the megacity of Lagos said the protest had started with activists wielding signs and walking down a major expressway, but before long angry protesters lit bonfires and vandalized at least three gas stations. A wounded man later ran along the road shouting: "The police shot me, take me to hospital!"
In the central city of Ilorin, another violent protest where policemen fired tear gas left a man dead. The National Labor Congress accused the police in a statement Tuesday of shooting the "antifuel hike protester." Continue reading...