Nigeria's labour unions insisted the strike which began Wednesday would continue, with Labour Congress President Abdulwaheed Omar declaring: "There is no going back," according to dpa. The strike impacted heavily on social service, but did not immediately affect crucial oil exports. Workers in the crude-oil production sector went about their normal businesses, but an official of Anglo-Dutch oil giant, Shell, said there was no guarantee the situation would endure. Secretary to government, Babagana Kingibe, had accused labour of intransigence and being uncooperative to dialogue with government. "Government's charges are untenable and diversionary, Omar insisted. He commended what he called 70 per cent compliance to the strike directives by Nigerians and said labour would move out early Thursday to ensure that compliance was total across the country. Omar said the refusal by government to invite labour to another round of talks was another indication of its ignorance and said government was daring the Nigerian people. Earlier in the day, Omar led a protest march of labour to picket petrol stations and banks that opened for business. In the march was a Deputy Commissioner of Police in Abuja, Ade Shinaba, who led a team of policemen to ensure peace. Shinaba told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that 12,000 policemen and women were deployed to the march "to ensure that hoodlums do not hijack the exercise to foment trouble." He commended labour for ensuring that its protest march was held peacefully. The NLC, the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria and the Joint Action Forum, a coalition of civil society groups, had called an indefinite strike. It was to demand for a reversal of pump price of petrol to 50 cents a litre, instead of the 59 cents a litre imposed by ex- President Olusegun Obasanjo 48 hours before he left office on May 29. The strike was also to demand a reversal of value-added tax rate to 5 per cent instead of 10 per cent imposed by Obasanjo. Labour also demanded a 15 per cent wage increase for government workers and the reversal of the sale of two of the country's refineries by Obasanjo. President Umaru Yar'adua Tuesday conceded to the reversal of VAT rate, a 50 per cent decrease on the increase in the pump price of petrol and the payment of 15 per cent wage increase to workers, with effect from January. Government, however, referred labour to the Bureau of Public Enterprises, in charge of its privatisation programme, for negotiations over the sale of the refineries. Oil-rich Nigeria has no functional refinery and imports its petroleum products. In spite of its oil wealth, most Nigerians cannot make ends meet as they live on under one dollar a day.
