But Western partners would like Nigeria to do more first to reduce corruption and improve government in the southern Niger Delta, where ethnic militants have recently stepped up attacks on oil installations and kidnappings of oil workers.


Nigeria is the world‘s eighth-largest oil exporter and the delta, a vast tangle of mangrove-lined creeks in the south of the country, produces the bulk of its crude. Recent attacks by Ijaw ethnic militants, who want more local control over the region‘s oil, have curbed Nigerian exports by a fifth.

At a meeting last week in London to discuss the delta‘s problems, a presentation by a top official of Nigeria‘s state oil company NNPC included a "shopping list" of military hardware, said the Western diplomats, who asked not to be named.