LAGOS, Nigeria – Thick black smoke and flames rose Tuesday from the burning roadblock that cut off a highway linking Nigeria’s mainland to the islands where the oil-rich nation’s wealthy live. The bare-chested young men who live under the bridge said they had had enough.

“This is oligarchy, this is not a democracy!” shouted Danjuma Mohammed, clutching a rock in each hand. “We are no longer afraid of you! We are ready for war!”

A paralyzing strike called by labor unions to protest spiraling gasoline prices drew tens of thousands into the streets Tuesday to denounce government corruption in Nigeria, a multiethnic nation often violently divided by those who have and those who have not.

The anger also fueled violence that pitted Christians against Muslims in Nigeria’s southwest, where five people were killed in attacks on a mosque and Quranic school.

At least six people were wounded in the attacks in Benin City, Nigerian Red Cross spokesman Nwakpa O. Nwakpa said. On Monday, a mob tried and failed to set a mosque ablaze.

The sectarian violence is among worrying signs of possible countrywide unrest in this nation divided into a mostly Christian south and Muslim north. A radical Islamist sect called Boko Haram has begun killing Christians in the nation’s northeast, leading to a call by a prominent Christian leader for worshippers to defend themselves.

The Benin City attack appeared to be a response to those killings.

“It looks like a reprisal from attacks in the north,” Nwakpa said. “They took advantage of protests.”

The nationwide strike, which began Monday, came after President Goodluck Jonathan removed subsidies on Jan. 1 that had kept gasoline prices low. Overnight, prices at the pump more than doubled, from $1.70 per gallon (45 cents per liter) to at least $3.50 per gallon (94 cents per liter). The costs of food and transportation also doubled in a nation where most live on less than $2 a day.

Jonathan insists the move was necessary to save the country an estimated $8 billion a year, which he promises will go toward badly needed road and public projects. However, protesters — who joined the strike under the slogan of “Occupy Nigeria” — say the time has come to end government corruption in a nation where military rulers and politicians have stolen billions.

More than 10,000 people gathered Tuesday at a park in Lagos, where protests were mostly peaceful. However, crowds were tense elsewhere in the city of 15 million.

Dr. Tayo Konolafe, a gynecologist, led a group of young protesters, shouting that he would be ready to abandon his career and “hold a gun” to bring change in the country.

“Everybody is angry. A hungry man is an angry man,” Konolafe declared. “What we are passing through in Nigeria is not poverty — it is penury.”

Whether the government can hold back nationwide unrest remains unclear. Soldiers are deployed now in the country’s restive central region over fears of ethnic and religious violence, in its northeast to fight Boko Haram and in its oil-rich southern delta to stop militancy. Those operations have had mixed success, while critics say the country’s police force is more focused on collecting bribes from civilians than protecting them.

“I will not say it is easy, but we are trying to contain it,” said Moses Onireti, a police spokesman in Oyo state, where a dusk-to-dawn curfew was imposed to try to control violence. “These protesters are everywhere, everywhere.”

Unrest could affect oil production in Nigeria, which produces about 2.4 million barrels of oil a day and is a top crude supplier to the U.S. However, most fields remain unmanned and offshore oil fields provide much of its capacity. Unions representing some oil workers have promised to strike, but it is unclear what effect on production that has had.

The strike has closed Lagos’ busy Apapa Port, cutting off cargo shipments. Businesses remain shuttered, while air carriers canceled more international flights. Organizers say the strike will continue until the government restores the subsidies.

Meanwhile, anger in the street continues unabated. At the Ikoyi Island roadblock, a convoy of police escorting a member of the country’s elite arrived, with officers loudly loading their Kalashnikov rifles in an attempt to drive the protesters away. Officers put out part of the flaming blockade with an extinguisher, then drove off, leaving the protesters behind.

Another convoy of unarmed officers arrived. They pleaded for calm but the protesters instead threw stones as the officers struggled to put out the flames.

“They will kill us and we will kill them!” the protesters shouted.

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Associated Press writer Yinka Ibukun contributed to this report.

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Jon Gambrell can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.

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CAIRO – Rumors about an impending hike in fuel prices sent Egyptians lining up at gas stations, spotlighting the latest crisis in Egypt’s political transition at a time when the economy is reeling and anger is widespread over the pace of reform after former President Hosni Mubarak’s ouster.

The latest challenge confronting Egypt’s military rulers and the interim government came after government approval of a plan to cut energy subsidies for some industries was widely interpreted by the public as a move to cut subsidies for fuel on which millions of Egyptians depend.

Lines formed at gas stations, with some reportedly selling out of key grades of gasoline while others saying they had not received shipments of the fuel. As motorists stocked up, supplies were depleted and some stations turned customers away, further stoking the belief that not enough was being produced by the country.

Wael Ziada, head of Egypt research at Mideast investment bank EFG-Hermes said whatever the root cause of the crisis, it could “become a self-fulfilling prophecy” in which prices rise solely in response to the rumors, irrespective of whether there is any truth to them.

At a time when the government is trying to rein in spending and foreign reserves are bleeding away, Egypt spends about 40 percent of its budget on fuel and food subsidies. The support ensures at the pump and many basic staples in the groceries stores are cheap, a vital consideration for many in the country, where about 40 percent of the population of 85 million is near or below the poverty line.

Egyptian officials have been quick to deny that there is a problem with fuel production, blaming the shortage instead on unscrupulous traders out to make a quick profit.

The fuel crisis is a new, unwelcome headache for officials, already under pressure from a populace angry over the pace of reform and worried whether the military will make good on pledges to hand over power to a civilian authorities following presidential elections slated for June.

Petroleum Minister Abdullah Ghorab was quoted in Monday’s edition of the daily Al-Masry Al-Youm as saying that that traders were essentially hoarding fuel to drive up prices.

Deputy Oil Minister Mahmoud Nazim denied that fuel prices would be increasing, reported the official MENA news agency. Nazim said the country was currently producing enough to meet daily domestic demand.

Official denials, however, have carried little resonance in post-Mubarak Egypt. The fuel crisis offers a window into the country’s broader economic problems that have mushroomed since the authoritarian president was pushed from power in mid-February.

Mass protests have built up momentum over the past year, disrupting daily life, helping inject tremendous uncertainty into country’s political transition and, in the end, undercutting efforts to attract tourists and foreign investors. Those two sectors are among Egypt’s foreign currency mainstays. Net international reserves have fallen by 50 percent since December 2010, reaching $18 billion last month.

On Monday, a team from the International Monetary Fund began a mission to discuss with officials a potential $3.2 billion support package — measures that could come with the kind of cost-cutting conditions that could stoke further undercurrents of unrest in a country where economic pain has only grown since the Jan. 25 uprising.

Officials turned down the IMF loan in June, arguing they did not want to saddle any new, incoming government with additional debt. But conditions have since deteriorated, with borrowing costs climbing while reserves dropped precipitously.

While the government has blamed the fuel issue on the market and unscrupulous traders, analysts worry that it may be a product of the government’s cash crunch.

“If you don’t have the cash to buy more gas, then you deal with a shortage and have to face the possibility of a black market,” said Abdel-Moneim Said, an economic analyst with the Al-Ahram Strategic Center. “The government is trying to increase production, but local production is at capacity.”

Compounding the problems of paying for fuel, the government faces other pressures. The country has also seen borrowing costs spiral as its sovereign credit rating has been repeatedly downgraded by the three main reporting agencies. Meanwhile, it is looking for cost-cuts in hopes of realizing its target budget deficit of 8.6 percent of gross domestic product in the current fiscal year.

The plan to cut energy subsidies that was approved by the government targeted some heavy industries, which have long benefited from low fuel costs.

Cutting those subsidies may have been a prudent step, analysts said, but the fact that it sparked a public panic that prices at the pump would also be going up reflects the government’s problems in communicating policy objectives to a population that, after roughly three decades of Mubarak rule, distrusts anything coming from officials.

“This is another example of the lack of direction in terms of policy,” said Said Hirsh, Mideast economist with Capital Economics in London. “If you put out notice that you’re going to cut subsidies, you’re going to get a run on stations.”

“I would imagine this (fuel issue) to be related to the sense of confidence in decisions the government is making,” said Hirsh.

Most officials agree subsidy cuts must happen in one form or another, especially since the gas subsidies benefit Egypt’s rich as well. The issue is likely to come up during the government’s discussions with the IMF over the $3.2 billion loan. Still, economists said the IMF probably won’t demand drastic moves or impose stringent conditions, given the delicacy of the moment.

“It’s a standard IMF approach to look at subsidies,” said Hirsh. “They would press the government on how to deal with it. But it would be impossible to deal with it straight away. They would be sensitive to the societal pressures.”

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