The government of Chad Republic has made a formal request to the federal government to to connect the country to the Nigerian electricity grid.
Chadian Ambassador to Nigeria, Abakar Saleh Chachaimi made the request during a visit to the Minister of Power, Engr. Sale Mamman in Abuja.
While the ambassador stressed the historical and economic value of connecting Chad to Nigeria’s electricity grid, the Minister of Power on his own part said it would help in enhancing the long existing relations between the two countries.
Mamman who approved the request to host his counterpart from the Republic of Chad for a technical analysis of the request, said Nigeria would evaluate it within the various projects under the Transmission Rehabilitation and Expansion Programme (TREP) for possible integration.
The Minister said;
“I, therefore, direct the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) whose representatives are part of this meeting, to come up with a business case and implementation modalities. Based on that, we will write to the Presidency to secure all the necessary approvals.”
Mamman disclosed that under the framework of the West African Power Pool (WAPP) objective of promoting power exchange among ECOWAS member states, the Republics of Benin, Burkina-Faso, Niger and Nigeria are building an 875 kilometre 330 kilovolt power transmission line, the “North Core Transmission line”.
Mamman also informed the Chadian delegation that currently, Nigeria has bilateral contracts for supplying electricity to Niger Republic and Benin Republic which has been ongoing for decades.