ABUJA : Nigerian union leaders declared their nationwide general strike a success and vowed to take the protest into a second day to force President Olusegun Obasanjo to honour a pledge to cut fuel prices.

The normally teeming streets of the commercial capital Lagos were almost empty, service stations were closed and the city's largest food market deserted on the first day of what labour has threatened will be a three-week stoppage.

In the capital Abuja some federal civil servants trickled in to work, having been threatened with the loss of their wages, but large squads of riot police were deployed at strategic junctions in anticipation of street protests.

On Tuesday, Obasanjo's government said it would comply with a court order and instruct private fuel marketers to cut pump prices by more than a fifth, to return them to their levels in early February, as demanded by the unions.

The Federal High Court also ordered the unions to suspend the strike.

But Adams Oshiomhole, president of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), said that the action would go ahead and continue until workers could confirm that the government and petrol companies were serious about cutting prices.

"You heard yesterday government saying they were going to comply with the court order; they were going to reverse the price rise," he said at the NLC's Abuja headquarters, describing the strike as 85 percent successful.

"Now, the information we are getting doesn't suggest the government has complied. We want to find out why they haven't complied, and why they have lied to the Nigerian people," he told reporters.

Oshiomhole later held another round of talks with Nigeria's labour minister, but came out declaring himself still not satisfied. "I regret to have to say that the strike is continuing," he said, insisting prices had not fallen.

Speaking for the government, Information Minister Chukwuemeka insisted that the government had indeed ordered private filling stations to cut prices and that they would face legal or regulatory action if they did not do so.

He also warned labour leaders that they too must obey the court ruling, and call off their strike. "There may be consequences for those who do not comply," he told reporters after the weekly cabinet meeting.

It was impossible to confirm whether an order to cut prices had gone out, as most filling stations were closed because of the strike and had not yet posted new tariffs. Some, however, were trading at Tuesday's higher price.

In January the NLC suspended a planned general strike after a court ordered a freeze on petrol price increases. On February 9, the court ordered marketers to hold the price at 39 naira (25 cents) per litre.

The price has nevertheless since risen to more than 50 naira, sparking widespread public anger.

Nigeria is Africa's largest exporter of crude oil and world markets are watching nervously to see if the Nigerian oil unions will make good on their threat to disrupt its exports of more than two million barrels per day.

Spokesmen for Nigeria's main producers -- the Anglo-Dutch giant Shell, US-based ChevronTexaco and France's Total -- told AFP their firms were watching the situation carefully, but that production and exports had not yet been hit.

"We are still studying the effect of the strike on our work. At the current time we are still producing crude. We really don't know regarding exports. We want a quick resolution of the crisis," said Shell's Don Boham.

Nigerian fuel prices are still low by world standards but over the past year have seen a series of steep increases in an oil-rich country whose impoverished citizens traditionally regard cheap, subsidised fuel as a birthright.

Obasanjo's government abolished subsidies and price controls in June last year as part of a programme of liberal economic reforms designed to halt Nigeria's seemingly inexorable slide into poverty.

But following an immediate general strike -- during which police shot dead at least 12 protesters -- the state has again taken a hand in controlling prices through an industry stakeholders committee.

The strike has won broad popular support across much of the country, and in Lagos and Abuja Wednesday's stoppage was an impressive show of force.

In the northern commercial centre of Kano, however, only organized sector premises -- banks, filling stations, schools and government offices -- were closed, while markets, private transport and stores worked normally.

Also in the mainly Muslim north, workers in Sokoto State agreed to suspend the strike after their supreme Islamic leader, the Sultan of Sokoto, gave his assurance that he would see fuel prices come down.

There were no reports of violence during the day of protest, but a renowned political activist, Femi Aborisade, said he had been seized by secret police and interrogated for three hours after attacking Obasanjo on television.

Obasanjo, meanwhile, left Nigeria bound for the United States, airport officials said. He is due in Savannah, Georgia to lobby the G8 summit of the world's most industrialized countries for investment and debt relief.

- AFP