King vows to make of Rabat-Abuja alliance a framework for consultation on all African issues

King Mohammed VI of Morocco has vowed to make of the Rabat-Abuja strategic alliance a framework for consultation and cooperation on all African issues.

This came during a phone call the Moroccan Sovereign had on Wednesday with President of Nigeria Muhammadu Buhari, said the Royal Office in a statement.

The King who enquired about the health condition of president Buhari [currently undergoing medical treatment in Great Britain] thanked the Nigerian leader for his personal involvement concerning the return of Morocco to the African Union.

The King “assured him as to his intention to make of the Rabat-Abuja strategic axis a framework for consultation and cooperation on all African issues,” the Royal Office statement added.

Talks also touched on the conclusions of the meeting King Mohammed VI chaired in Casablanca last December on the Morocco-Nigeria Atlantic gas pipeline and the upcoming stages of this strategic project, the statement said.

The gas pipeline project-related agreement was signed early December during a visit by King Mohammed VI to the Nigerian capital Abuja.

The two countries’ sovereign wealth funds will jointly develop the pipeline to run about 4,000 Km along the West African coast from Nigeria to Morocco. Coastal countries that will benefit from this project include Benin, Togo, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Gambia, Senegal and Mauritania. The pipeline will help West Africa bolster its energy security while channelling Nigerian gas as far as Europe.

During the phone talk, the Monarch also informed president Buhari about his latest African tour that led him to several countries (Ghana, Zambia, Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire) as well as about Morocco’s application to become full-fledged member of the West African Economic Community, ECOWAS, and the contacts he made in this respect with the region’s heads of states.
Morocco’s membership to ECOWAS is viewed as a natural step, given the strong relationship binding the North African kingdom and the countries of the regional bloc. Morocco is the first largest African investor in the sub-region and the second in the continent.

Founded in 1975 under the Treaty of Lagos in Nigeria, ECOWAS musters 15 members, namely Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea-Conakry, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Senegal and Togo.