The French Development Agency (Agence de Développement Français) provided €370 million for soft loans to Nigeria so it develops its power sector.

Denys Gauer, France ambassador to Nigeria made the announcement and reaffirmed the commitment of his country to help Nigeria’s energy sector grow. He however highlighted that “Nigerians must give priority to renewable energy, either solar, or biomass among others” for according to him, “those are the solutions for the future”.

The French government has indeed supported various renewable energy projects and many French investors expressed their desire to do the same. “We have worked very closely with the Nigeria authorities; we have helped Nigeria participate in several multilateral initiatives on renewable initiatives,” he said adding that “African initiatives for renewable energies were designed to increase the share for renewable energies from 28 to 48 per cent in 2017 for the whole ECOWAS region”.

Let’s recall that on October 6, 2016 in New York, Nigeria’s minister of finances, Kemi Odeosun accused the Occident of being hypocritical, telling Africa not to use coal to produce energy, after building its wealth on the same resource.

Gwladys Johnson