By Soumaya El Filali
Agadir – Morocco and Nigeria signed, last week, a huge project to extend a West African gas pipeline that will not only stretch out all the way towards Europe, but will also connect many African countries in the process.
The Nigerian minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyema and Morocco’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Salaheddine Mezouar both praised the Trans-African Pipeline project and highlighted some of its promising results in an interview published in Saturday December 3.
Onyema stressed the importance of the project for the continent and the African countries involved that will, in the end, achieve great benefits.
“The pipeline project guarantees promising results as it will cross path through several African countries before reaching Morocco. Eventually, the five or six African countries involved will benefit not only from the generated profit and value but also from a potential connection to the European energy markets,” Onyema said.
The Nigerian Minister went on to add that the pipeline project falls under the two countries’ leaders vision of breaking free from dependency on petroleum and creating new ways and opportunities of generating profit.
Salaheddine Mezouar emphasized the advantages the project will have on both countries’ economic growth, human development, and foreign investments.
“Energy is one of Africa’s biggest issues,” the Moroccan Minister said, “The pipeline project will strongly influence the continent’s energy sector and its sustainable development,” He continued.
The highly ambitious project whose cost estimated at several billiondollars will be financed by Ithmar Capital, the Moroccan sovereign wealth fund, and the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA), who have recently signed a partnership with the World Bank to pursue investment for renewable energy.
The new collaboration between Morocco and Nigeria is intended to set a model for South-South cooperation while putting into action King Mohammed VI’s regional strategy, in which he has declared that Africa is the top priority in Morocco’s foreign policy.
