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Labour and civil rights activists carry placards as they march in Lagos/AFP

Africa

Police kill protester in Nigerian fuel price strike

Labour and civil rights activists carry placards as they march in Lagos/AFP

LAGOS, Jan 9 – Police shot dead a protester in Nigeria’s commercial capital Lagos Monday during a national strike over fuel prices, a union leader said.

“We just received a report that one person has been shot dead by police in Lagos,” Abdulwahed Omar, president of the Nigerian Labour Congress told protesters in the adminstrative capital Abuja.

“That is very sad… that in a democracy, people coming out unarmed to express their grievances will now be confronted by fully armed policemen,” he said.

Several thousand people took to the streets of Lagos amid fears tension could spill over into violence after the authorities were accused of using excessive force and killing a demonstrator during protests last week.

In another part of the city protesters marched past bonfires set with tyres on a major road and some threw stones after they believed police were seeking to turn them back.

Thousands of people heeded the unions’ call to stage protest rallies across Africa’s most populous country in a show of anger against the more than doubling of petrol prices after government abolished fuel subsidies.

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