The Nigerian air force has decided to sell its older MiG 15 and 21, Jaguar and G222 aircraft and replace them with more modern multi-purpose warplanes.
August 17; Civil unrest has forced Texaco to halt production in its Nigerian oil fields The lost production amounts to 1.3 million dollars of oil sales per day. Total Nigerian daily production is about 36 million dollars a day. The new civilian government plans to reduce the size of its military from 80,000 to 50,000 men..
August 15; Ijaw militants in oil rich Ondo state attacked soldiers guarding an oil installation .One person was killed and several wounded. Some 200 people have died here in ethnic fighting during the last two weeks. Recently arrived government troops have imposed a dusk to dawn curfew.
August 12; The government played down, but did not deny reports that last week troops killed some 300 civilians in northeast Nigeria. Apparently a force of 20 police, 20 soliders and 60 civilian volunteers went in to pacify the area. Leaders of the various ethnic groups in Ondo state agreed to allow the army to enter and keep the peace. Civil disorder in Nigeria's coastal oil provinces has cost the country a billion dollars in lost production last year. The local people have gotten little to show for all the oil pumped out of their neighborhoods. There has been a lot of pollution because of the oil drilling, and few of the locals have gotten jobs or any economic benefit out of it. As a result, the last few years have seen more and more demonstrations and violence against the oil operations. The oil companies have been more helpful in dealing with the problem than the government, and because of that the disorder continues..
August 11; Local newspapers reported that last week troops killed some 300 civilians while putting down unrest in a remote area of northeast Nigeria.
August 10; Fighting between Ilajes and Ijaws in Ondo state continues, and gets worse.
August 9; Fighting between Ilajes and Ijaws in Ondo state has flared up again over the last few days, leaving several dead. Army reconnaissance troops of the 2nd Mechanized division have arrived to get a better idea of just what the situation is. Officials of the newly elected Nigerian government are claiming that the ethnic unrest currently plaguing the country is being instigated by enemies of the new government. No proof was provided.
August 8; The new government has discovered that the military officers who recently left office had looted the treasury. The theft could be as high as 400 million dollars. This will make it more difficult for the new government to keep the peace, as money is often the cure for civil unrest.
August 3; For the last several days, fighting between Ilajes and Ijaws in the towns of Oroto and Apaja have killed as many as fifty people. The fighting sometimes involves who will obtain what benefits from the local oil production. About 700 of the 3,000 Nigerians living in Sierra Leone are being evacuated because their homes and livelihoods were destroyed in the civil war.
July 29; Refugees who fled ethnic fighting in Kano have begun to return home.
July 28; Ethnic fighting broke out in eastern Nigeria (the Aguleri-Umuleri region). The majority population in the area is Ibo. The death toll is high, with 50-100 dead.
July 27; More violence in Kano, about 80 have died, mainly Christian Yorubas in this mainly Moslem Hausa town.
July 26; Violence continues Kano, after three days of ethnic violence. About two dozen died.
July 24; Ethnic violence breaks out in the northern city of Kano, with majority Hausas attacked Yorubas.
July 19; Violence continues in Shagamu, with more than 66 dead. Riot police have arrived and put down most of the violence. Many Hausas have fled the town fearing retribution from the more numerous Yoruba.
July 18; The southern town of Shagamu had a major outbreak of ethnic violence between Yorubas and Hausas