Police and protesters clashed in Nigeria’s north Monday as thousands converged on a governor’s office during nationwide fuel price strikes, leaving 30 wounded, including 18 who were shot. A union leader also said police shot dead a protester in Nigeria’s commercial capital Lagos as thousands of people demonstrated there. Police fired tear gas and shot into the air as thousands of protesters converged on the governor’s office in the northern city of Kano as part of a national strike over fuel prices.
A huge crowd of protesters had gathered in Kano, the main city in Nigeria’s north, and clashes broke out with police who pushed them back as they tried to enter the governor’s office, an AFP correspondent reported. Protesters set two vans ablaze and also sought to set fire to the home of central bank governor Lamido Sanusi in Kano, but were stopped by police.
“In total, we have 30 wounded, 18 of them with gunshot wounds,” said Red Cross official in Kano Musa Abdullahi, updating an earlier toll of 14 wounded, half of them shot.
Meanwhile, protesters attacked a mosque in southern Nigeria and wounded several people, leading police to fire tear gas, police and witnesses said. A mob detached from a group of protesters marching along a main street in Benin city, the capital of Edo state, and raided the mosque located along the same road, an AFP correspondent said. They hurled rocks at the mosque’s louvres and tried unsuccessfully to set the building on fire. The attackers also looted fans from inside the mosque. A correspondent saw police take away a man with a machete cut on his head.
A Red Cross official said 10 people were wounded during the attack which also targeted a foreign exchange bureau run by Muslims near the mosque. Police confirmed the attack and said it was staged by “miscreants” who hijacked the main protest, which they described as peaceful. “There was an attempt to burn the mosque in the city centre. Some people were injured,” state police commissioner Femi Omojola told AFP. He said the injuries were minor.
