Editorial

The budding Nigeria, Morocco friendship

 

The recent state’s visit by President Muhammadu Buhari to his counterpart in Morocco, King Mohammed VI came with a lot of expectations. This is on the backdrop of what happened in the past where a former president had a spat with the palace in Morocco over call or no call. And even so, over recent moves by Morocco to join the Economic Community of West African Countries, ECOWAS which has not attracted favourable cooperation with Nigeria. With a two-day state visit to the Kingdom of Morocco done and dusted areas of focus which are in three economic co-operation agreements and a memorandum of understanding. One of the agreements was for a gas pipeline to run from Nigeria through the West African sub-region to the Kingdom of Morocco and up to Europe.
Next in issue from the state visit is a memorandum of understanding, MoU for a development of a chemical plant in Nigeria for the production of ammonia and its derivates aimed at securing the fertilizer production for Nigeria’s agriculture. Finally, was a skills and training agreement for agricultural production and management.
To be fair, these projects had been on the drawing board since King Mohammed VI’s first state visit to Nigeria in December 2016.The King had then arrived with a 300-member delegation signaling that His Majesty was in Nigeria more for business rather than pleasure.
The pipeline would be an extension of the old pipeline which has been pumping gas to West African countries since 2010. Morocco’s National Office of Hydrocarbons and Mines, ONHYM and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC issued a joint statement explaining that “for economic, political, legal and security reasons the choice was made on a combined onshore and offshore route.”
The ambitious pipeline is to be built in phases and will measure 5,660 kilometres or 3,500 miles, and is tailored to respond to growing needs of the target countries and Europe over the next 25 years. Next month, the feasibility study of the agreement on the pipeline, which was signed by the Group General Manager NNPC, Farouq Said Garba, and the Director-General of the ONHYM, Mrs. Amina Bankhadra, will be concluded and the Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline, NMGP would come to life. It is expected to reduce gas flaring in Nigeria.
For us, this is a step in the right direction where economic diplomacy is concerned. We hope that in no distant time, details which remain sketchy about the responsibilities of each country in terms of funding will be revealed. These projects are such that help the diversification process of our economy.
There is no doubt that we have not made any haste or showed sufficient enterprise in marketing Nigeria’s abundant gas resources since 1975 when the initial move was aborted by the putsch that toppled the Yakubu Gowon regime. Nor have we had adequate resources to exploit those resources even for our own domestic use. It is heart-breaking to see millions of Nigerians still felling trees for firewood instead of utilizing quadrillions of cubic feet of gas that lie beneath our soil and continental shelf.
On the joint fertilizer venture, the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of the Nigerian Sovereign Wealth Authority, Uche Orji, and the Chief Executive Officer of the Office of the Management of Phosphate in Morocco, Mostafa Terrab, both initiated the MoU for the development of a chemical plant in Nigeria producing ammonia and its derivatives. On the third tranche of the agreements, Nigeria’s Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, and his Moroccan counterpart, Aziz Akhannouch, also signed a cooperation agreement on vocational training and technical supervision which would lead to the improvement of skills for better management for agricultural enterprises in Nigeria.
We have no doubt that if these agreements are faithfully implemented both countries will have a good deal to gain in terms of jobs and economic development. It is also a good example of African cooperation and the identification of mutual interests. As countries spread their tentacles in pursuit of even trade and cooperation, it is heartwarming that we are not left behind. This kind of cooperation, rather than aids and loans are the new face of modern inter-state trade. We support it and call on policy formulators to be on the lookout for friendly nations with whom we can make similar if not better dealt with.

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