Britain wants to restructure Nigeria’s energy sector to become more beneficial to Nigerian residents and to lessen tensions that have resulted in a recent surge of militant attacks.
UK Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks stressed the importance of having the UK present and told the Financial Times, “Local peoples everywhere need to feel that they are benefiting from massive energy interventions. If people don’t get that, then they become the bandits, some of them. When people do get that, they become key members of local civil society.”
The UK’s experience would be a useful tool in helping Nigeria’s electricity regulation authority and create methods to harness its vast gas reserves to tackle its severe power shortages. However, energy companies have complained privately that bureaucratic inertia and lack of clear decision-making has slowed development of new projects that would help the sector progress.