Nigeria and Morocco have signed two bilateral agreements aimed at strengthening their business relationship.
Godfrey Onyeama, minister of foreign affairs; Audu Ogbeh, minister of agriculture; Kayode Fayemi, minister of mines and steel, and Abubakar Badaru, governor of Jigawa state, witnessed the signing of agreements in Rabat, capital of Morocco.
The first agreement was the joint initiative on the Morocco–Nigeria gas regional pipeline.
Tagged ‘The Wonder of Africa’, the pipeline is said to have been designed by ‘Africans for Africans’.
The project which is about the speeding up of electrification projects in West Africa reportedly has a direct impact on 300 million people.
The memorandum of understanding was signed by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the Office National des Hydrocarbures et des Mines (ONHYM).
It specified equal partnership in governance, management and financing of the project, and will determine the modalities of undertaking a feasibility study and a Front-End Engineering and Design (FEED) study relating to a gas pipeline from Nigeria to Morocco.
The timeline for both studies is two years from the date of signing.
The second bilateral agreement is about the second phase of the fertiliser initiative.
The first phase was the supply of a cargo of phosphate by Morocco to Nigeria.
Nasser Bourit, foreign minister of Morocco, who presented the broad guidelines of the projects, said the signing of the agreements reflects the shared vision of President Muhammadu Buhari and King Mohammed VI, the king of Morocco in favour of a sustainable, active and solidarity based joint development for Africa.
Both projects were initiated during the visit of the king to Nigeria in December.
Source: Nigeria, Morocco strengthen business relationship | TheCable
