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High Oil Prices Met With Anger Worldwide
Indonesians struggle for queue numbers to take cash from the government. This weekend the government said gas prices would nearly double.
(By Yusuf Ahmad -- Reuters)
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Nigeria, a major oil producer, offers perhaps the most disturbing illustration of the depth of antipathy that can arise when fuel costs increase. In Nigeria, rising petroleum prices have dramatically fattened the budgets of the government and the bottom lines of oil businesses but caused a powerful backlash against President Obasanjo and, say some motorists, against democracy itself.
Since Obasanjo's election in 1999 heralded the end of military rule, he has overseen years of steady decreases in government fuel subsidies at the urging of the World Bank. Prices have increased 44 percent, up to $1.74 per gallon, in just the past two months -- a bargain to Americans, perhaps, but not to impoverished Nigerians.
Many motorists have taken to filling up tanks only partway, a few dollars at a time, as money becomes available. Mohammed Ali, 26, a government contractor, said it costs $25 to fill the tank of his black Honda coupe. On this afternoon, he put about $3.50 worth in the tank.
"It's a really big problem," Ali said. "Since we are one of the oil-producing nations, the pump risings should be affordable."
In the spate of protests that has recently erupted, the most vehement participants have been motorcycle taxi drivers, generally recent migrants from poor, rural areas who have few job prospects. They say that ridership has fallen as they have been forced to raise their prices.
Mohammed Sani, 28, said he can recall that gas prices were one-sixth the price they are now under military dictator Sani Abacha in the 1990s. He said he would welcome a return to military rule if gas prices returned to those levels.
"We are not happy with democracy," Sani said. "All our eyes are on petroleum" prices.
A gas station manager, Zamani Maisamari, 30, said the public anger comes from the combination of higher prices, a weak job market and stagnating services. Heavy fuel subsidies, he said, were one of the few forms of government spending that ordinary Nigerians could feel.
"You go to the hospital, there are no drugs," he said. "You go on the roads, they are not good."
He added, "Ever since we experienced democracy, each year it's increasing price, price, price. Year after year."
Blustein reported from Washington, Timberg from Abuja, Nigeria. Also contributing to this story were Washington Post correspondents Kevin Sullivan in London, John Ward Anderson in Paris, Monte Reel in Buenos Aires, Daniel Williams in Rome, Emily Wax in Windhoek, Scott Wilson in Jerusalem, Peter Finn in Moscow, Doug Struck in Toronto, Edward Cody in Beijing, and John Lancaster in New Delhi, with special correspondent Muneeza Naqvi.
