Posted on Wed, May. 18, 2005

Nigerian police kill youth in unemployment protest, triggering riot




ASSOCIATED PRESS

Hundreds of youths stormed a police station and set fire to cars in southeastern Nigeria on Tuesday after a protester was fatally shot by a police rifle, officials said.

The youths began protesting Tuesday morning over demands that a local oil refinery and petrochemical plant employ more people from the area, said police chief Samuel Adetuyi.

They set fire to part of a police station in the Niger delta village of Ogale and burned an SUV in its courtyard. One protester was killed when he tried to grab a rifle from a police officer and the gun accidentally went off, he said.

Police fired tear gas to disperse the other protesters, who were demonstrating outside the oil plants, Adetuyi said.

A police official said around 400 protesters then carried the dead body to the police station before smashing and burning cars. The local police commander ordered his men not to open fire "because many lives would have been lost," said official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Adetuyi said four people had been arrested.

Discontent is high among people in the Niger delta over unemployment and continued poverty despite booming oil production in their area.

The lion's share of the 2.5 million barrels per day of oil exported from the OPEC member nation comes from the Niger delta's creeks, although most villagers live without electricity or running water.

Nigeria is the world's seventh largest oil exporter and the fifth largest supplier of crude to the United States.