Nigerian fuel protests grow, mob kills 5 in mosque

A mob killed five people in an attack on a mosque in southern Nigeria on Tuesday, as tens of thousands took to the streets in a second day of nationwide protests against the scrapping of a fuel subsidy that has nearly doubled petrol prices.
The attack in Benin City raised fears that President Goodluck Jonathan’s two major security headaches, opposition to fuel deregulation and sectarian strife, were merging into one.
An aid worker whose organization operates in the area, who declined to be identified, said the mosque attack 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.
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 liter.
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