Gangs set up road blocks in Lagos as Nigeria's strike continues

Gangs in Nigeria are reported to have set up burning roadblocks in Lagos to extort money and police have fired tear gas at protestors on the second of a national strike that has brought the country to a standstill and left six people dead. 

Reuters/Afolabi Sotunde

The indefinite strike follows the government's controversial move to end fuel subsidies on 1 January which caused petrol prices to more than double in a country where most of the 160 million population lives on less than two dollars a day.

Traders in one 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.

In the northern city of Bauchi, police fired tear gas and shot into the air to disperse a few thousand protesters at two locations. No one was reported hurt.

Protestors say the strike action will continue until President Goodluck Jonathan and his government understand the need for change.

“Nigerians don't trust Goodluck Jonathan, they don't trust any member of his cabinet,” Segun Dada, a writer and blogger from the Ojota district of Lagos told RFI. “People are being shot, there are a lot of injured people, there are a lot of people being killed. The President has to go, at some point or another."

On Monday, police and protesters clashed and six people were killed as tens of thousands demonstrated nationwide and the strike shut down the country.

On Monday, tensions ran particularly high in Kano, the largest city in Nigeria's north, where 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 curfew was also introduced on the capital of northern Zamfara state after a
group of protesters smashed the windows of a church.