A mob killed five people in an attack on a mosque in southern Nigeria today, as swelling numbers took to the streets in a second day of nationwide protests against the scrapping of a fuel subsidy that has nearly doubled petrol prices.
An aid worker whose organisation operates in the area, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the subject, said the attack on a mosque in Benin City had forced 3,000 Muslims of northern origin to flee.
The assault was most likely a reprisal against northern Muslims for attacks by the radical Islamist sect Boko Haram on Christians of southern origin in the north, including a spate of deadly raids on churches which have killed dozens.
The Benin attack raised fears that President Goodluck Jonathan's two biggest security headaches - opposition to fuel deregulation and sectarian strife - were merging into one.
Boko Haram's increasingly violent northern-based insurgency is straining relations between Nigeria's largely Christian south and its mostly Muslim north. That has stretched security forces now also occupied with containing fuel protests.
The police said suspected members of Boko Haram on Monday evening assassinated a member of the state security service and shot dead two other people, in separate incidents.
When subsidies on imports of motor fuel were scrapped on January 1, many citizens saw what they regard as their only welfare benefit disappear and the price of petrol more than doubled to 150 naira ($0.93) a litre.
Tens of thousands demonstrated in cities across the country of 160 million. Today's protests were bigger than yesterday's in Lagos, Nigeria's largest city, and in the capital Abuja.
Mr Jonathan has shown no sign of weakening in the face of protests similar to those that have derailed past attempts to scrap the fuel subsidy.
"The strike is the first true test in policy terms of the Jonathan presidency. They chose the issue and the timing," said Antony Goldman, Nigeria specialist and head of London-based PM Consulting.
"If they prevail, the prospects for reform in other delicate areas - the constitution, oil and gas, revenue - all improve. If the strikers prevail, the administration's credibility is massively damaged. If oil exports are not hit, the government will hope the thing just peters out."
In Rivers state, in the oil-rich Niger Delta, the local government said it would cap the price of fuel in the state at 137 naira per litre. Although this is more than double the subsidised price it is the first sign of local government compromising on the free market message pushed by Jonathan.
Thousands gathered outside the labour union headquarters in Lagos and marched to the marina that runs along its wide lagoon. The roads of the normally heaving commercial hub, notorious for its traffic jams, were largely empty.
Oil workers were also on strike and the offices of international companies such as Shell and Exxon Mobil were shut. But Shell and the state oil company said output was unaffected.
A group of youths set up a road block of burning tyres on the main bridge over the lagoon connecting Lagos's two islands to the mainland, shouting at cars to turn back. "The betrayers in government must free us from slavery," one placard read.
Police fired live rounds into the air to disperse a crowd in the middle-class suburb of Lekki.
Reuters