NIGERIA: One man shot dead and nearly two dozen are wounded as thousands of Nigerians demonstrate against a fuel subsidy cut

Record ID: 235442

  • Title: NIGERIA: One man shot dead and nearly two dozen are wounded as thousands of Nigerians demonstrate against a fuel subsidy cut
  • Date: 10th January 2012
  • Summary: LAGOS, NIGERIA (JANUARY 9, 2012) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF OGBA COUNTY HOSPITAL VARIOUS OF WOUNDED IN HOSPITAL (SOUNDBITE) (English) STUDENT AND ESTATE CONSULTANT DICKSON OLAIFA, SAYING: "We are going to sue them [the Nigerian police], we are going to sue them for what they have done today whereby they are among the masses too, they are suffering, they are not spirits, they also have children that are going to school, they have a wife as human beings so they are not spirits, they are not robots. So at the same time, they are going to be put to justice for what they have done today. The deputy police officer is going to reap what he has sown." VARIOUS OF POLICEMEN PROTESTERS IN OGBA WHERE THE KILLING TOOK PLACE (SOUNDBITE) (English) SHOP WORKER LUKMON BAKARE, SAYING: "The police shot someone who is not a thief and, on a good day he is a citizen of this Nigeria. That is what we are fighting for and we cannot agree it to happen, never in life because it is cheating. Why will they [the police] kill someone that is not a thief." PROTEST AGAINST THE KILLING
  • Embargoed: 25th January 2012 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Nigeria, Nigeria
  • Country: Nigeria
  • Topics: Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA94R4EYG77AJC6VH5674WCJL8J
  • Story Text: Police shot dead one protester and wounded nearly two dozen as thousands of Nigerians demonstrated against the axing of fuel subsidies in Africa's top oil producing nation on Monday (January 9) and unions launched an indefinite nationwide strike.
    At Ogba hospital, where the man's body had been transferred to the mortuary, three protesters lay waiting to be treated for gunshot wounds to the leg.
    "We are going to sue them [the Nigerian police], we are going to sue them for what they have done today," said Dickson Olaifa, who was at the hospital.
    Angry residents in Ogba, a rundown iron-roof suburb of the main commercial city of Lagos, where the man was shot dead, said police had fired on a crowd to disperse it.
    "The police shot someone who is not a thief and, on a good day he is a citizen of this Nigeria. That is what we are fighting for and we cannot agree it to happen," said shop worker Lukmon Bakare in Ogba.
    Shops, banks and petrol stations were shut in Lagos, and the network of highways and bridges stretching over its wide lagoon, usually clogged with traffic at all hours, were empty.
    Production of Nigeria's average two million barrels of crude oil a day carried on as normal despite the strike, sources at two international oil companies and the state firm told Reuters.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
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