A day after tens of thousands protested, youth gangs set up roadblocks of burning tyres along major roads in Lagos, the largest city in Africa’s most populous nation, and threw stones at vehicles as they sought to extort money from drivers.
A slow-growing crowd of about a thousand people began a march in the city early in the day, with youths singing to afrobeat music that blared from speakers on a van.
Some carried a mock coffin labeled “Badluck” — a play on the first name of President Goodluck Jonathan.
In one area of the city, protesters set up roadblocks and held up drivers, claiming a bus had run over someone on his way to the demonstration and killed him.
Traders in another part of Lagos were said to have stayed away from a market out of fear that criminals would seek to rob them amid the unrest.
The few taxis on the road often had leafy branches stuck to their bonnets as a sign that they sympathised with protesters.
The strike follows the government’s deeply controversial move to end fuel subsidies on January 1, which caused petrol prices to more than double in a country where most of the 160 million population lives on less than $2 a day.
“We will not call off the strike until the government listens to the voice of reason and rescinds its decision,” said Daniel Ejiofor, a 41-year-old labour activist at the protest site in Lagos.
“We appeal to Nigerians to persevere because victory is around the corner.”
On Monday, police and protesters clashed and six people were killed as tens of thousands demonstrated nationwide and the strike shut down the country.
Officials said, however, that oil output has not been affected in Africa’s largest crude producer. The country’s output is around 2.4 million barrels per day.
The launch of what unions called an indefinite strike came at a crucial moment for Nigeria, already hit by spiralling violence blamed on Islamist sect Boko Haram.
Tensions ran particularly high Monday in Kano, the largest city in Nigeria’s north, when thousands converged on the state governor’s office and were pushed back by police who fired tear gas and shot into the air.
The state government imposed a nighttime curfew on the city, where a hospital source said two people were shot dead. A Red Cross official said 18 people had gunshot wounds in Kano.
A curfew was also slapped on the capital of northern Zamfara state after a group of protesters smashed the windows of a church.
In the southern city of Benin, protesters Monday attacked a mosque and wounded several people, leading police to fire tear gas, police and witnesses said.
A witness said he saw police take away a man with a machete cut on his head.
Three people were shot dead in protests in Lagos on Monday, according to the head of Nigeria’s human rights commission — one of them allegedly shot dead by a police officer.
Police confirmed the death and said the officer was arrested.
The government says it spent more than $8 billion (6.3 billion euros) on subsidies in 2011 and needs the savings from scrapping the subsidies to improve the country’s woefully inadequate infrastructure.
Nigerians view the subsidies as their only benefit from the nation’s oil wealth and lack any real trust in government after years of deeply rooted corruption.