Nigeria ? Boys juggled soccer balls in deserted streets and cars jockeyed for position at filling stations Wednesday as Nigeria’s labor unions launched a strike aimed at overturning government price increases on gasoline in Africa’s oil giant.

Nigeria is one of the world’s leading crude producers, but virtually all of its gasoline is now imported after years of graft, mismanagement and violence rendered refineries inoperable.

Heavy government subsidies keep reimported petroleum products cheap in a country whose citizens complain they get little else in the way of services from a notoriously corrupt government. Unions launched their strike in hopes of forcing the government to roll back a 15 percent increase on automobile fuel.