Fuel shortages hit Nigeria

Abuja - Oil-rich Nigeria's main cities are facing acute gasoline shortages as importers feel the pinch of a plummeting local currency, tighter credit lines and unpaid government subsidies, oil traders and local industry sources said.

As queues of double-parked cars stretch outside filling stations in the capital Abuja, empty tanks elsewhere are forcing consumers onto the black market just weeks before presidential elections on March 28 in Africa's biggest economy.

"I have spent 12 hours here," taxi driver Bartholomew Odey Akpa told Reuters on Monday. "I work at the airport as a car hire ... and there is no fuel for me to go."