Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari has attended the Nigeria International Energy Summit (NIES) for the last time as the country’s leader, emphasising his administration’s achievements in the sector that earns Nigeria most of its foreign exchange. Speaking at the event in Abuja, Buhari outlined how he had dismantled challenges in the sector by undertaking major reforms. He stated that his first task was to free up his administration from funding the oil sector by exiting the government from Joint Venture (JV) cash call funding. He cited the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) as his biggest achievement in the energy sector, which is a revolutionary law that replaced existing agencies and replaced them with new regulators. In the natural gas sector, Buhari drove industrialisation through domestic gas utilisation, officially declaring natural gas as Nigeria’s transition fuel.
He highlighted the launch of the National Gas Transportation Network Code (NGTNC), a set of rules guiding the use of a gas transportation system, the Nigerian Gas Flare Commercialisation Programme (NGFCP) as well as the declaration of January 1, 2021, to December 31, 2030, as Nigeria’s ‘Decade of Gas’ as some other milestones recorded. Buhari also discussed the development of the $2.8 billion Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano (AKK) natural gas pipeline project, which is 43% completed. He argued that his administration had created a conducive environment for businesses to thrive and highlighted the $5 billion NLNG Train 7 project and the Dangote Refinery as examples.