Police accused of shooting 10 strikers dead as Bush visit looms

Ten protesters were shot dead by Nigerian riot police yesterday, a trade union leader claimed. Although the government denied the deaths, with police firing tear gas and rubber bullets at civilians, it showed signs of being increasingly desperate to end a crippling general strike before President George Bush's Africa trip ends here on Friday.

The US President starts his Africa tour - the first by a Republican President - today in the Senegalese capital, Dakar. From there he moves on to South Africa, Botswana and a short stopover in Uganda with President Yoweri Museveni, before ending his trip in Nigeria.

Yesterday, as riots erupted in the commercial capital, Lagos, President Olusegun Obasanjo made a new offer to trade unions who for more than a week have kept the country at a standstill with protest action against an increase in the price of petrol. The unions are resisting an attempt by Mr Obasanjo's government to reduce and ultimately scrap subsidies on fuel.

The government hopes that when Mr Bush arrives in the capital, Abuja, on Friday he will find no strikers or strife, no potholes, no fuel shortages, hopefully no exploding pipelines, and certainly no beauty queens dodging salvos from stone-throwing sharia legislators.

Nigeria is keen to live up to the pre-election Bushism that it is "a very important continent" - a description that suits the country's superpower mentality but contrasts with the economic realities faced by its impoverished population of 100 million.

Abuja, where Mr Bush will speed down Bill Clinton Drive - the airport access road that was renamed to mark the Democrat president's visit in 2000 - is an artificial city. It has traffic lights with all three colours in working order, smooth avenues, signposts and a world-class sports stadium.

In Abuja's modern, air- conditioned buildings you only have to boil the tap water for a typhoid-free drink. In offices, the mains electricity works at least half the time. Abuja is about as far from Nigeria's inner-city realities as the income from the world's eighth biggest oil producer is from the pockets of its masses.

It is a year since the Miss World contest was cancelled in Abuja and moved to London after protests from Muslim extremists in the north of the country; since sectarian riots in Kaduna, which left thousands dead, and since the worldwide controversy over Amina Lawal, the 17-year-old woman who, at the time, was facing a death sentence in a sharia court. And it is four years since Nigeria's military dictators handed the country over to civilians or, in the case of General Obasanjo and others, swapped their uniforms for flowing gowns.

But if politicians' memories are short, the people of Nigeria are increasingly casting their minds back. The pipeline explosion two weeks ago in Abia state, which killed up to 200 people who were scavenging for fuel, was a repeat of a fire in Jesse, Delta state, in 1998. Little has been done since to secure pipelines and ensure they are not deliberately damaged by villagers wanting petrol.

This week, Adams Oshiomhole, the president of the Nigerian Labour Congress, who is emerging as a more effective government critic than any of the country's opposition politicians, claimed that civil servants were "conspiring to make sure the country's four refineries operate below capacity". By ensuring the refineries have a low output - despite the government having spent $700m (£425m) on repairs in the past four years - they are able to maintain a re-import racket for refined petrol set up in the days of military rule.

Abuja superseded Lagos as the capital 15 years ago. The newly built city is so pristine that Mr Bush will not believe anything he has been hearing on the news about Nigeria. Observers here say Mr Obasanjo's stance against the invasion of Iraq was a small hiccup in otherwise marvellous relations with the White House.

The United States has made a few pre-tour observations, including noting that Al-Haramain, a Saudi Islamic group with branches in Nigeria, is considered to be terrorist. And now that Zimbabwe has entered US foreign policy as a result of warm relations between London and Washington, Mr Bush will probably ask his Nigerian counterpart to stop supporting President Robert Mugabe in the Commonwealth.

And both of these issues may be used as bargaining chips by the US, which encouraged Nigeria to offer political asylum to the Liberian President, Charles Taylor. The State Department believes that if there is to be peace in Liberia - which was set up by freed African-American slaves - then its disgraced leader needs to be plucked from the equation. A US military team flew into Liberia yesterday to look at how best to bring stability to the fractured West African country. The 20-member team is seen as a possible precursor to a larger force, which the US is considering sending.

But, as they say here in Nigeria, "the palm-wine seller never reveals the extent of the fruit at the top of his tree". All foreign policy issues are of naught compared to the United States' rich pickings of Nigerian "sweet" crude - said to be especially suitable for American refineries and perfect for the Bush administration's stated desire to reduce its dependence on Middle Eastern oil and expand US exploration in West Africa.

But to Pat Utomi, a professor at Lagos Business School, the oil sector is irrelevant to ordinary Nigerians. "It employs very few Nigerians, is increasingly moving offshore and would continue to exist even if Nigeria went up in smoke," he said. "What Nigeria badly needs is inward investment and it is up to us to create the climate for this. We have failed to do this so far and we only have ourselves to blame."