President Bola Tinubu has described the $100 million South-East gas pipeline project as a strategic investment that would strengthen manufacturing and unlock economic opportunities across the five states.

Mr Tinubu said this at the project’s investment signing ceremony on Tuesday in Enugu. Represented by the deputy speaker of the House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu, Mr Tinubu said the project will also boost industrialisation, attract investments and create jobs in the South-East.

The 400km pipeline is designed to connect gas resources to industrial and commercial centres across Enugu, Anambra, Imo, Abia and Ebonyi.

“The South-East’s entrepreneurial spirit is one of Nigeria’s greatest economic assets. I have always believed that the prosperity of the Southeast is inseparable from the prosperity of Nigeria,” he said.

He said the project aligned with his administration’s commitment to building an integrated regional economy, stressing that gas infrastructure should support industrial development across state boundaries rather than serve isolated markets.

“Gas infrastructure must therefore serve industries and markets, not stop at political boundaries. That is the economic logic of regional integration,” he added.

He said the pipeline would benefit manufacturers in Aba, strengthen industrial clusters in Nnewi and Onitsha, attract productive enterprises to Enugu, expand agro-processing and manufacturing in Ebonyi and connect Imo’s gas resources to the wider regional economy.

He said the ambition extended beyond supplying existing factories to creating the conditions for new industries, industrial parks, and investments that had stalled because of unreliable energy supply.

“Our ambition is not simply to deliver gas to existing factories. It is to make possible factories that do not yet exist, industrial parks yet to be developed, and investments that have remained on the drawing board because reliable energy was unavailable,” Mr Tinubu said.

He described the South-East Development Commission (SEDC) as an institution established to deliver measurable development outcomes, urging it to assess its performance by the investments it mobilised, the infrastructure it enabled, the opportunities it created, and the lives it improved.

The president said the South-East Vision 2050 development framework, supported by Vice-President Kashim Shettima and the region’s governors, provided a foundation for coordinated economic growth. 

He commended the SEDC for committing $3 million to the gas project and establishing a framework to mobilise additional investments from state governments, institutions and private investors.

He said the project’s initial phase required approximately $100 million, describing the partnership between public institutions and private investors as essential to developing sustainable infrastructure.