The Secretary General, West African Power Protocol( WAPP), Dr. Amadou Diallo on Monday said the West African region requires about $26bn to interconnect the power systems of Nigeria and other countries.

Diallo was speaking at the 7th Session of the ECOWAS which started in Abuja yesterday (Monday).

The vision of WAPP  is to integrate the national power system operations into a unified regional electricity market; with the expectation that such mechanism will, over the medium to long-term, assure the citizens of the Economic Community of West African States stable and reliable electricity supply at affordable costs.

This is expected to create a level playing field to facilitate balanced development of diverse energy resources of ECOWAS member states for their collective economic benefit, through long-term energy sector cooperation, unimpeded energy transit and increasing cross-border electricity trade.

Diallo, who mentioned the connection and transmission of electricity to many ECOWAS member nations as one of the many successes of WAPP, expressed concern over the lack of funds to invest into the generation and effective connection of power to the remaining nations.