David Cameron is flying back to London to address the crisis over phone hacking and police links with the media, after cutting short a two-day visit to Africa.

The Prime Minister said he would use a statement to the House of Commons on Wednesday to set out the detailed terms of a judicial inquiry into the issues raised by the phone-hacking scandal.

But he insisted that he would not allow the furore - which has claimed the jobs of two senior Scotland Yard officers and a number of media executives - to distract his Government from other priorities like the economy, jobs, immigration and welfare.

Speaking in Nigeria ahead of his return to the UK, Mr Cameron insisted he would ensure action is taken to get to the bottom of the affair.

"I don't under-estimate the problems," he said. "Parts of the media committed dreadful illegal acts, the police have serious questions to answer about potential corruption and about a failed investigation, politicians have been too close to media owners.

"These are big problems but we are a big country and we are going to sort them out. We are going to get to the bottom of them through a judicial inquiry and we are going to make sure that they can't happen again.

"That's the duty of the Government I lead and that is the duty we are going to carry out. The British people want to know that."

But he insisted that dealing with the hacking issue did not mean ministers are "taking our eyes off the ball" on voters' priorities like jobs, welfare reform and immigration.

He highlighted talks he had on Tuesday with Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan over the 650 or more of his countrymen currently in British jails. The Nigerian Parliament is to discuss new prisoner transfer arrangements which could see them sent home to serve the remainder of their sentences.

"I want to give reassurance to people back at home," said Mr Cameron. "This is a big problem, but we are going to sort it out. At the same time, we are not going to take our eye off the ball of getting our economy to grow, getting jobs for our people and making sure we have got a strong immigration and welfare system and doing all the things that the British people are crying out for."