The government announced that it had spent $11 billion during the 1990s on peacekeeping in Liberia. Some 500 Nigerian troops were also killed during those operations. Nigeria's generosity in the peacekeeping area was largely an attempt by the military dictatorship to distract international pressure on them to allow elections and halt the brutal oppression at home. The current elected government is still willing to take place in peacekeeping operations, but without such generous budgets. Efforts to deploy 1,700 peacekeepers to the Guinea and Sierra Leone border are hampered by logistical problems and lack of funding.