The double crisis facing the African giant has left the global oil market watching anxiously and President Goodluck Jonathanfacing his toughest challenge since he was elected last year.
Despite a government order late Tuesday that labelled the strike over soaring petrol prices illegal and threatened to withhold pay, protesters took to the streets and gangs of youths burnt tyres as they harassed drivers for cash.
Pockets of Lagos, the largest city in Africa’s most populous nation and biggest oil producer, descended into chaos in some areas, with gangs attacking at least one police car with sticks and ripping down signposts.
The main groups of protesters in Lagos however remained peaceful, with some 10,000 demonstrators at one of the largest sites where they have gathered daily, dancing and singing along to anti-government songs.
Some vowed they would begin camping out there.
“I am here with my water and toothbrush because we are not leaving this arena until our demand for fuel at 65 naira ($0.40, 0.30 euros) is met,” said Akinola Oyebode, a 23-year-old at the main protest site in Lagos, referring to petrol prices per litre before a new government policy took hold on January 1.
“We shall not be intimidated by the police because our protest is legitimate and constitutional.”
Smaller protests were being organised in other parts of the city, including one calling itself “Occupy Nigeria” in reference to the Occupy Wall Street movement in the United States.
Oil production has so far not been affected by the strike, but workers have threatened further action if the government does not respond to demands.
Tens of thousands have turned out this week for protests nationwide over the government’s move to end fuel subsidies, which caused petrol prices to more than double in a country where most people live on less than $2 per day.
At least six people were killed on the protest’s first day, including one person allegedly shot dead by police in Lagos and two others shot in the northern city of Kano as police and protesters clashed.
Local media reported that three others were killed in southwestern Ogun and Osun states on Tuesday, including one by a police officer, but authorities had not confirmed the deaths.
Meanwhile, spiralling ethnic and religious violence in various parts of the country has fueled further chaos amid warnings of a wider conflict in a country roughly divided between a mainly Muslim north and predominantly Christian south.
Sixteen people were killed in three separate incidents in the latest such violence.
An Islamic school was torched in the south on Tuesday and Islamist group Boko Haram was blamed for gunning down eight people, including five police officers, in a pub in Potiskum in the northeast.
Boko Haram has been blamed for scores of attacks, and in recent weeks has claimed responsibility for violence specifically targeting Christians. Christian leaders have vowed to defend themselves.
Amid the sectarian and social turmoil, Nobel literature prize laureate Wole Soyinka, one of the country’s most respected voices, warned that the continent’s most populous nation was heading toward civil war.
In addition, a statement signed by Nigerian writers, including renowned novelist Chinua Achebe, author of the seminal novel “Things Fall Apart,” warned that the attacks were “precursors to events that could destabilise the entire country.”
“Clearly, the sophistication and deadly impact of the terrorist attacks suggest an agenda to create widespread fear and, possibly, to foment anarchy or war,” it said.