Abuja, Nov. 19, 2019 (NAN) President Muhammadu Buhari, on Tuesday, hosted the Special Envoy of the President of Equatorial Guinea, Nguema Mbasogo, at the State House, Abuja.
This was contained in a statement issued by Mr Femi Adesina, the President’s spokesman, in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital.
The statement said the Special Envoy and Minister of Mines and Hydrocarbons, Gabriel Lima, had brought a message from his president on the forthcoming meeting of Heads of State of gas-exporting nations, which Equatorial Guinea would be hosting.
Receiving the envoy, Buhari declared that if Nigeria had followed her own programme for exploiting its gas reserves, the country would have been earning more money from the product than from petroleum now.
He said: “We share a lot of things in common with Equatorial Guinea. These include geographical neighbourliness and neighbourliness in terms of resources.
“Nigeria is more of a gas producing, rather than oil producing country. That fact had long been established.
“If we had followed our own plans, laid out in the 1970s, for the gas sector, we should have had 12 trains by early 1980s, instead of being on just six trains now,” the president said.
The special envoy thanked Nigeria for the support given to Equatorial Guinea to host the first summit of gas exporting countries in the world, taking place on African soil.