Nigeria pledges gas supply across West Africa

The Nigerian government on Tuesday said it would pump gas across the West African sub-region in furtherance of the objectives of the West African Gas Pipeline (WAGP) project.

President Muhammadu Buhari made the pledge in Abuja, the country's capital city while addressing a joint news conference with the visiting Beninese President Patrice Talon.

The Nigerian leader said the country was considering converting gas to liquid form for easy export to countries of the sub-region.

"The world knows that Nigeria has plenty of gas and what we need to do is to stabilize the environment so that this gas can be regularly pumped to the sub-region through the infrastructure already in place," he added.

"Also the Nigerian LNG is not doing too badly, the gas can be turned into liquid form; the technology is now available; it can be transferred to Benin Republic to power their power stations," he said.

Buhari thanked Benin Republic for its continued support to Nigeria in the fight against Boko Haram in the North East.

In his remarks,, President Talon said Benin was looking forward to reactivating the existing bilateral relationship between Benin and Nigeria especially in the areas of trade relations, economy, energy development and education.

However, Talon raised alarm over increased activities of smugglers along border areas between Benin and Nigeria.

He stressed the need to deal with smuggling, noting that doing so would help enhance revenue generation in both countries. Endit