Nigeria’s President to Pay First Official Visit to Morocco

Nigeria’s president, Muhammadu Buhari, will pay an official visit to Morocco on June 10 at the invitation of King Mohammed VI, Moroccan media said.

Three leading Moroccan news outlets, Le360, Telquel and Media24, reported the news citing authorized sources that preferred not to be named.

Relations between the two countries have improved significantly following the King’s visit to Abuja in 2017.

The visit featured the launch of flagship projects permeated by a south-south cooperation approach with Morocco offering to establish a fertilizers factory that will help Nigeria meet its food security goals with an export potential.

The two countries are also planning an Atlantic pipeline that will 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 channeling Nigerian gas as far as Europe.

The pipeline will also help Nigeria gain a steady flow of gas export and will drain investments to boost production. With 30% of the continent’s gas reserves, Nigeria’s production remains largely untapped and this project may trigger production.