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Nigeria moves to sell electricity to four West African countries

Nigeria is in talks with four West African countries expected to buy unused electricity from it.

The deal will be done through a planned $570 million Northcore Power Transmission Line.

The acting Managing Director of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) and Chairman, Executive Board of the West African Power Pool (WAPP), Engr. Sule Ahmed Abdulaziz, stated this on Wednesday during the WAPP meeting on the Northcore project in Abuja.

According to Daily Trust, about 2,000 megawatts (MW) of electricity is said to be unutilised daily across the Generation Companies (GenCos) in Nigeria and could be exported.

“The power we will be selling is the power that is not needed in Nigeria. These generators that are going to supply power to this transmission line are going to generate that power specifically for this project. So it is unutilised power,” Abdulaziz said.

He also noted that Nigeria is expecting new generators to participate in the energy export for the 875 kilometre 330 kilovolts Northcore transmission line from Nigeria through Niger, Togo, Benin to Burkina Faso.

“In addition, there are some communities that are under the line route, about 611 of them which will be getting power so that there won’t be just a transmission line passing without impact.”

The project is funded by World Bank, French Development Council and the African Development Bank.

Speaking on the benefits, the WAPP chairman noted, “Nigeria has the greatest advantage among these countries because the electricity is going to be exported from Nigerian GenCos. So from that, the revenue is going to be enhanced and a lot of people will be employed in Nigeria.”

The Secretary General of WAPP, Siengui Appolinaire Ki, said: “The cost is about $570 million and the part of the investment in each country is funded by the country and they are supported by the donors, and Nigeria is taking its own.”

He also said the funding agreement is ready as they await the disbursement.

Police arrests four for alleged murder of teenager in Akwa Ibom

The Akwa Ibom State Police Command has arrested four suspects in connection with the abduction and murder of one Edidiong Wilson, a 19-year-old, in the Eket Local Government Area of the state.

The suspects, who include a woman, who fled to Ondo State, were arrested by operatives of the homicide section of the command, after an intelligence report.

The state’s Commissioner of Police, Andrew Amiengheme, while parading the suspects before journalists on Friday, alleged that the principal suspect, Christiana Wilson, conspired with the other suspects and abducted her stepson, Edidiong, to a nearby bush, in Eket.

According to Amiengheme, the suspects beat the victim to death and buried him in the bush, but later went and exhumed his decomposed body, cut off his head, and buried it separately on the pretext that his ghost was disturbing them.

“The suspects buried the deceased in the said bush and later went back to exhume the decomposed body, cut off his head, and buried it separately on December 30, 2020, at about 7 pm, on the ground that the ghost was disturbing them. They thereafter fled to Ondo State,” he said.

The police commissioner said the principal suspect had in her confessional statement claimed that she gave the deceased the sum of N100,000 being part of the proceeds from the sales of her late husband’s vehicle for safekeeping.

However, she claimed that when she demanded the money from the deceased, he told her that he saved the money in a microfinance bank in Eket LGA and never returned it.