The Federal Executive Council on Wednesday approved that Nigeria pays its 2020 annual contribution to the West African Power Pool.

The country’s annual contribution to the pool is $2m.

The approval for the payment was given at the weekly meeting of the council presided over by the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.).

The Minister of Power, Saleh Mamman, disclosed this to State House correspondents at the end of the meeting at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

The WAPP was created by a decision at the 22nd Summit of the Economic Community of West African States Authority of Heads of State and Government in 1999.

It is meant to integrate the national power systems into a unified regional electricity market with the ultimate goal of providing in the medium and long term, a regular and reliable energy at competitive cost to the citizenry of the ECOWAS region.

Justifying the approval for the payment, Mamman said, “The pool is about having synergy within the West African region.

“The decision has been taken by ECOWAS, it is for the generation of electricity in the region, so as to have more constant and steady power supply.

“It is like the national grid in Nigeria. So, we are going to have a regional grid. It means in case there is a failure in one country, another can supplement. The $2m is a contribution.”

The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, corroborated Mamman’s justification of the approval.

He said the $2m was not a gift to ECOWAS but Nigeria’s contribution.

The minister said, “The West African Power Pool is made up of all West African countries because each member state contributes annually to the cost of power transmission across the pool.

“The consequence is that if there is a problem in one country, it could inadvertently affect the other country.

“This was created in 1999 by authorities of the West African Heads of State. It is a common pool and every country has its own section and our contribution for this year is $2m.

“It is not as if we are giving $2m to ECOWAS, we are simply paying our own contribution for the transmission from Nigeria to other West African countries and viz-visa.”

Mohammed added that the council approved the award of contract for the reconstruction of the Apapa-Oworonshoki-Ojota Road Section II in the sum of N22.247bn.

He said FEC also approved the augmentation of the contract sum for the dualisation of Kano-Maiduguri Road.

He put the augmentation cost at N8bn, therefore bringing the total cost of the contract to N63bn.