Nigeria drops plans to cut army

The Nigerian government is reported to have abandoned plans to significantly reduce the size of the armed forces.

The defence minister, Theophilus Danjuma, announced last year that the number of troops would be cut from eighty-thousand to fifty-thousand.

But in an interview with a Nigerian newspaper The Guardian published today Sunday, General Danjuma said he'd been wrong to believe that the economy could not support current troop levels.

The armed forces have been deployed on several occasions over the past year to help quell ethnic and religious violence. Nigerian troops also guard the border with Cameroon, as well as forming the bulk of the peacekeeping force in Sierra Leone. The BBC correspondent in Lagos says the change of mind is probably due to concern by senior soldiers at the government's plans.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service