Tuesday
Jan102012
Nigeria Feature: How Subsidy Cuts Led to Strike, Protests, and Deaths (Mark)
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 9:13
Every previous government's attempt to remove the subsidy, which funnels a quarter of the £15.5bn annual government budget to a well-connected cartel of fuel importers, has floundered amid mass protests. Many see the subsidy as a rare opportunity to share in the nation's oil riches, whose 2m barrels per day industry has failed to lift the vast majority of citizens out of extreme poverty. In 2003, there were eight days of strikes when the government attempted to increase fuel prices.