Nigerians Protest Oil Price Rise as Subsidies End Pius Utomi Ekpei/Agence France-Presse - Getty Images Nigerians in Lagos on Monday protested a sharp rise in fuel prices after subsidies ended. A strike shut down much of the country. DAKAR, Senegal - Tens of thousands of Nigerians took to the streets in cities across the country on Monday to protest a sudden sharp rise in oil prices after the government abruptly ended fuel subsidies. At the same time, a national strike over the oil price increase shut down much of the country. Protesters held signs with slogans like "Remove Corruption, Not Subsidies" and burned tires in the commercial capital, Lagos, as well as in Abuja, the political capital, and in Kano, a northern metropolis. Several protesters were killed as the police sought to contain the demonstrations, according to multiple news reports. Analysts said the size and breadth of Monday's protests were unusual, though previous attempts over two decades to end the annual subsidies, now $7 billion, have also been met with fierce resistance, and the government has always backed down. Nigeria, one of the world's leading crude-oil exporters, is forced to import nearly all of its gasoline because the country's refineries are dysfunctional. The government pays the subsidy to middlemen, who have become extremely wealthy, so that the fuel can then be sold to the public at low rates. Fuel doubled in price in the past week, to about $3.50 per gallon from about $1.70 per gallon, after the government announced it was ending a program that amounted to about a quarter of the national budget. In a nation where poverty is widespread and the per capita gross domestic product is only about $2,300, according to State Department figures, the increase was expected to transfer a significant financial burden onto individuals. The public has erupted in anger over the past week, an outcry that culminated on Monday, at the termination of what people considered a rare benefit from a government chronically mired in corruption and otherwise unable to provide basic services like electricity, health care and education. In Abuja, protesters led by labor leaders began marching as early as 8 a.m. on Monday, chanting antigovernment slogans. The police and the military set up a heavy security cordon around major government buildings. But witnesses in Lagos also described a festive atmosphere with musicians, dancing and an uncharacteristic absence of traffic in the usually frenetic city because of the strike. The fuel subsidy is one of the few dividends average Nigerians have received from immense oil wealth that has benefited a tiny minority of the population in the country's more than 50 years of independence. The protests coincide with a bloody revival of the insurgency by the militant Islamist group Boko Haram, which has claimed responsibility for the killings of scores of Christians in northern Nigeria over the past two weeks. Analysts say the two-front challenge - oil and Islamists - poses a significant threat to the weak government of President Goodluck Jonathan, elected last spring after serving as vice president and interim president. "Lifting the subsidy abruptly in the midst of massive government profligacy certainly is politically very provocative," said Peter M. Lewis, a Nigeria expert at Johns Hopkins University. The Nigerian government has been burning through money at a fantastic rate. To target the subsidy seems woefully misplaced to many Nigerians. Musikilu Mojeed contributed reporting from Abuja, Nigeria