WEST AFRICA: High oil prices hit poorest hardest

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

LAGOS, 14 Sep 2005 (IRIN) - As thousands of angry Nigerians took to the streets on Thursday to protest against 30 percent hikes in fuel price, across West Africa some of the world's poorest also were feeling the pinch, struggling to cope with the record-breaking cost of crude and its knock-on effect on basic goods.

Chanting slogans and waving banners, noisy protestors poured onto the grounds of the Lagos Governor's office denouncing fuel hikes decided 26 August by President Olusegun Obasanjo's government.

"We do not accept the increases and we're asking the government to revert to the old prices," said Adams Oshiomhole, president of the National Labour Congress and organiser of the demonstration.

The price of a barrel of oil rocketed from around US $40 at the beginning of the year to reach a record high of over US $70 on the 30 August, making consumers the world over dig deeper and deeper into their pockets for goods and services.

Though the average West African doesn't even own a bicycle, let alone a car, high fuel prices have forced up transport costs, making most goods, including food, more expensive.

"Many products are imported and that means they have to be transported," grumbled an old woman on the streets of Dakar, where petrol and diesel have gone up 25 percent since last December. "When the price of fuel goes up, that has repercussions on everything, everything, everything!"

Across much of the region, which is host to the world's six poorest countries, kerosene lamps are used to light homes with no electricity and meals simmer away on kerosene stoves.

But in Togo, where the traditionally cheap fuel has peaked almost 10 percent in recent months, Nadou Lawson said: "I can't afford to use kerosene to do my cooking anymore."

With six children to feed she scratches a living selling deep-fried fritters at the roadside in the Togolese capital Lome, using scavenged palm nut husks for fuel.

The taxi motorbikes that whiz past as she hunches over the bubbling oil leave choking clouds of blue smoke in their wake.

"The price of fuel is killing us!" said young motorbike taxi driver Ekue, draped on the iron railings of a Lome petrol station, waiting impatiently for his next passenger.

Despite working all day every day and often at night, his bid to provide for his wife and two kids has become a struggle since oil soared because there are so many motorbike taxis that customers are able to bargain down fares and whittle away his dwindling earnings.

"We're obliged to take clients at less than the normal tariff because nobody's got enough money to pay the normal fare," said Ekue.

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