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02/11/2006:

"Nigeria's oil hope and despair"

...Most of the promised development projects, like schools, roads and electricity supplies, have failed to materialise. Instead, they say, their land and water have been polluted by oil spills and their air ruined by the constant burning-off of natural gas.

There is an apocryphal story often told about the origin of the disquiet in the Delta.

In the 1990s the then military ruler, Sani Abacha, invited people from the Delta to the new purpose-built capital, Abuja.

When they saw its huge, well-ordered roads, bridges and high-rise buildings, they realised what the oil money could do, and how little of it they saw.

And so the trouble began.
bbc.co.uk