From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja

President Muhammadu Buhari has given assurance  that his administration was working hard towards solving the country’s power problems.
Speaking yesterday when he hosted Togolese President, Faure Gnassingbe, at the Presidential Villa, in Abuja, Buhari noted that the epileptic power supply was already affected neighbouring country, Benin Republic that was replying on Nigeria for its supply.
He stated that the Federal Government would improve on the existing power infrastructure, even as he commended foremost industrialist, Aliko Dangote, for complementing government’s efforts with his refinery and gas pipeline network project in Lagos.
Said Buhari: “You can see the efforts private investors are making. We are also building pipelines, not as formidable as what Dangote is doing but we are improving on it.
“We also have the NLNG that is helping us to liquefy the gas and then turn it into gas with modern technology and modern technology is making it flexible. We have power problem and Benin (Republic) has power problem because they depend on us and we are working very hard to stabilise the situation. The resources are available. The technology is available. We are trying to stabilise the situation.
“If we improve power, which means our productivity can be competitive and God willing we are going to achieve our objectives.”
Buhari described the crisis in in South Sudan and Burundi as unfortunate and that it came up in their discussion.
According to him, “we also discussed the unfortunate incidents in South Sudan and Burundi. It is an agonising situation – several citizens are living under primitive conditions. We hope at the AU meeting we will be able to stabilise the situations there.”
In his remarks, President Gnassingbe, who had inspected Dangote’s refinery project in Lagos earlier in the day, said it would enhance economic integration in West Africa and reduce reliance on non-African imports.
He said: “I am impressed by the investment of Dangote because we have been talking of socio-economic integration and promoting trade among African countries. If you want to promote trade, you must have investors that are very competitive and will contribute to reduce import from non-African countries.
“I was told the gas pipeline that will be built will be buried 150 metres under the sea to make it safer. It means if you want to promote blue economy, our ocean needs to be very safe. We need security.”
The Togolese president said he invited Buhari to attend African Union’s maritime summit holding in his country on October 15.