Nigeria is to build an Ozone Village to mitigate the impact of climate change, the News Agency of Nigeria reported on Wednesday, citing an official.

Funds for the first phase of the project, to be sited at Ikennein southwest Nigeria's Ogun State, has been released, the official said.

Abdulkasim Bayero, the assistant director in the pollution control department of the ministry of environment, said in Abuja on Tuesday that the concept of the project is to have an ozone-friendly technology development and training outfit.

"What we intend to achieve by establishing the ozone village is to have a center where various types of ozone-friendly technologies will be constructed and it will also serve as an indigenous capacity center," he told reporters.

"The Ozone village is just a title to make it unique. It will be expanded in the long run to general environmental protection technology," he said.

According to him, some indigenous engineers have fabricated various technologies that are ozone-friendly, such as prototype box foam machine, hydrocarbon machine and CFCs recovering and recycling machine.

"All these will be showcased at the ozone village. They have been completed and will be assembled in the village," he said.

Bayero said the project is a sustainable project with regards to the phasing out of ozone-depleting substances and embracing Nigerian indigenous technology rather than importing from abroad.

He added that the environment for the construction had been cleared and fenced, while the equipment house, office blocks and generators are in place.

(Xinhua News Agency December 10, 2009)