Factbox: Nigeria becomes latest to remove fuel subsidy

(Reuters) - Trade unions held a strike for a third day on Wednesday over the scrapping of fuel subsidies in Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation and the continent's top oil exporter.

Three people died on day one of the strike and now President Goodluck Jonathan and workers remain in deadlock. The subsidy ended on January 1, sparking the protests.

Here are some facts about Nigeria:

POPULATION: With around 160 million people, Nigeria is Africa's most populous nation and is home to more people than Russia. One in five sub-Saharan Africans is Nigerian.

- It is one of the world's major oil and gas exporters but around 70 percent of Nigerian live in poverty. According to the 2011 Human Development Index, life expectancy at birth is 51.9 years. Children spend an average of 5 years in school.

- At 156th on the 2011 HDI, Nigeria is the lowest among the members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Fellow OPEC member Iraq is in 132nd position, with an average life expectancy of 69.0 years.

- The price of petrol has doubled since the removal of the fuel subsidy to around 150 naira ($0.93) a liter. A Nigerian on the monthly minimum wage of 18,000 naira ($109), who spent his whole salary on petrol, could afford 124 liters.

FUEL SUBSIDIES:

- The IMF has urged countries across West and Central Africa to cut fuel subsidies, which it says are ineffective in directly aiding the poor, but do promote corruption and smuggling.

- Last month, Ghana abandoned subsidies for fuel - a move that raised pump prices by 15 percent. It will save Ghana the 450 million cedis ($276 million) it spent on subsidies in 2011. Cameroon was expected to spend about $600 million by the end of 2011 on fuel subsidies. Chad was criticized for raising the price of locally produced fuel and consumers have threatened to buy their petrol in Cameroon.

OIL: Oil exports account for over 90 percent of Nigeria's foreign exchange revenues.

- But its dependence on imports, including everything from toothpicks to refined fuel, has meant inflation has remained stubbornly in double digits and chronic power shortages have kept the cost of doing business high.

- Nigeria has four refineries with a combined capacity of 445,000 barrels per day (bpd) but they have never reached full production because of sabotage and poor maintenance, causing the country to rely on expensive imported fuel for most of its energy needs.

- Nigeria however has a proven crude oil reserve base of about 40 billion barrels and current production capacity of about 2.6 million bpd. Much of it is exported to the United States, Europe and Asia. Its sweet, light crude is sought-after because it is easy to refine into high-yield end products such as gasoline.

- In addition, its natural gas reserves are estimated at about 200 trillion standard cubic feet, the seventh-largest in the world. Gas production is minimal with much of it flared into the sky or used in the oil production process. Nigeria has ambitious plans to increase supply to 13 billion cubic feet per day (cfd) by 2015, more than double current levels.

- Nigeria's energy business suffers a high risk of spillages, human error, sabotage and theft, which in turn cause pollution. Oil pollution kills fish, their food sources and damages the ability to reproduce, causing long-term harm to stocks. Pollution also damages fishing equipment.

- Oil spills and waste dumping have also seriously damaged agricultural land. Long-term effects include spoiled soil, fertility and lowered agricultural productivity.

SECURITY AND RELIGION: Thousands have been killed in violence since the end of military rule in 1999, mostly in sectarian clashes in the central "Middle Belt" and the north.

- Roughly divided into a Muslim north and Christian south, with sizeable minorities in both. The Muslim community, accounting for approximately half the population, is the largest in sub-Saharan Africa. Traditional beliefs are widespread and many combine them with Islam or Christianity.

- President Jonathan said on January 9, a violent Islamist sect Boko Haram had supporters within his own government, and the insecurity the group has created is worse than during the 1960s civil war. He declared a state of emergency on December 31. The group, which wants to apply sharia law across Nigeria, claimed responsibility for near daily attacks, including one at a church near Abuja that killed at least 37 people on Christmas Day.

CORRUPTION: Jonathan decision to fire Farida Waziri, the chair of Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), last November was welcomed by critics who saw Waziri's tenure as politicized and ineffective. Graft is most Nigerians' number-one gripe, and foreign investors cite it as the main reason for steering clear. Both her and her predecessor were accused of failing to prosecute allies of the presidents that appointed them.

- Nigeria came 143 out of 183 countries in the latest Corruption Perceptions index from Transparency International.

Sources Reuters/World Bank/www.trust.org/amnesty.org/afripol.org/All Africa.com/UN statistics/Transparency International (For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: africa.reuters.com/)

(Reporting by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit; Editing by Joe Brock)