In 2021, Nigeria declared a Decade of Gas, positioning natural gas as the bridge fuel for industrialisation and the centrepiece of its energy strategy. The ambition was, and remains, the right one. With more than 200 trillion cubic feet of proven reserves, Nigeria possesses Africa’s largest gas endowment and one of the world’s most significant untapped energy resources. Yet the country’s greatest constraint is its ability to build the infrastructure needed to deliver it at scale.

It is within this context that the Nigeria–Morocco Gas Pipeline, now formalised as the African Atlantic Gas Pipeline, spanning thousands of kilometres across thirteen countries, should be understood. The intergovernmental agreement signed by ECOWAS heads of state in Freetown, Sierra Leone, in July 2026 marks an important diplomatic milestone. The project embodies an ambitious vision of regional integration, African energy security and the creation of a new export corridor to European markets. However, Nigeria’s own domestic gas network remains unfinished.

That tension is most evident in the domestic backbone itself. The Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano pipeline, intended to extend gas supply into northern Nigeria, and the OB3 pipeline, designed to link gas supplies from the eastern Niger Delta with the Escravos–Lagos Pipeline System, are both reported to be more than 90 per cent complete. That represents genuine progress, but it has come years behind schedule. Until AKK and OB3 are fully operational and integrated, large parts of Nigeria will continue to lack reliable access to gas-fired electricity, and the expansion of compressed natural gas initiatives will remain constrained.

Private capital allocation is often the most honest referendum on public institutions. One of the clearest examples is Aliko Dangote’s East-West Offshore Gas Gathering System (EWOGGS), a 1,100-kilometre offshore pipeline built to transport gas from the Niger Delta directly to his refinery and fertiliser plant in the Lekki Free Trade Zone, without relying on the state-led onshore transmission network.

This should be read plainly for what it is. One of Nigeria’s largest industrial consumers of gas concluded that the public backbone was too slow, too uncertain and too exposed to disruption to anchor its supply chain. Rather than wait for the national network to mature, he is building an alternative around it.

That decision is a market verdict on the institutions responsible for delivering strategic infrastructure at the pace the country’s ambitions require.

The same execution deficit is evident in Nigeria’s earlier gas export projects. Brass LNG and Olokola LNG have each spent more than two decades in development without reaching final investment decisions, cycling through partner withdrawals, and financing challenges. Neither project stalled because Nigeria lacked gas. Both struggled because investors never gained sufficient confidence that the regulatory, commercial and investment environment would remain stable enough to support multi-billion-dollar commitments.

There is little doubt that the African Atlantic Gas Pipeline will be a far more demanding test than the AKK and OB3 pipelines or the Brass and Olokola LNG projects ever were.

Moreover, the strategic environment for international pipelines has also changed. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine exposed both the geopolitical value and the vulnerability of cross-border gas infrastructure. Pipelines once viewed primarily as commercial assets can become instruments of geopolitical leverage along transit routes. The lesson is not that cross-border pipelines should be avoided, but that they are most resilient when anchored by a strong domestic gas market and robust national infrastructure.

Nigeria’s gas policy should affirm that domestic execution must underpin international expansion. The priority is to complete the domestic natural gas network and fully implement the country’s gas utilisation strategy. Electricity generation should sit at the top of that hierarchy because it delivers the highest economic return on every additional cubic foot of gas, supporting manufacturing, lowering production costs and improving energy security.

Once domestic gas-powered electricity demand is reliably met and industrial users have secure gas supply, LNG export initiatives should follow, or even run in parallel, enabling Nigeria to monetise surplus production while earning valuable foreign exchange and strengthening its position in international gas markets. Regional pipeline projects, including the African Atlantic Gas Pipeline and the Trans-Saharan Gas Pipeline, should be pursued from a position of proven domestic strength rather than as substitutes for it.

Until Nigeria consistently translates its domestic infrastructure commitments into completed projects, every new gas ambition, however strategically sound, will be viewed through the history of gas projects that remain unfinished or have repeatedly stalled, awaiting a revival.

  • Dr Olumakaiye writes from Coventry