Nigeria to spend more on impoverished Niger Delta

Nigeria has ambitious plans to lift itself out of a slump caused by the global markets crash, by overhauling its chaotic power sector and developing the oil-rich, but impoverished, Niger Delta. Thousands of militants in the region recently laid down arms in a presidential amnesty that promised them education and jobs. Years of attacks on oil installations and the kidnapping of foreign oil workers saw total Nigerian oil production cut by a third. Nigeria’s 2010 budget proposal includes a 32% increase in spending from 2009. About a third of this is intended for capital spending on infrastructure, the power sector and development in the Delta. Read more: Reuters