The head of the United Nations atomic watchdog agency on Wednesday inspected a nuclear reactor in northern Nigeria that officials said was designed for research on peaceful uses of atomic energy.
Mohamed ElBaradei, who was leading a team of experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), arrived in Nigeria on Monday to inspect radioactive centres in the West African country and advise on safety and security.
The most important stop came on Wednesday with the visit to Nigeria’s first nuclear reactor at the Ahmadu Bello University in the northern city of Zaria. ElBaradei then headed back to the capital, Abuja, said Akim Bakreen, spokesperson for Nigeria’s Nuclear Regulatory Agency.
President Olusegun Obasanjo welcomed ElBaradei and his team on Tuesday and declared that Africa’s most populous country has no ambition to become a nuclear power. He said Nigeria is only interested in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.
The IAEA team later inspected the gamma irradiation plant at Sheda near Abuja. The team is due to leave Nigeria on Thursday.
The two Nigerian facilities were set up under safeguards provided by the Vienna-based agency that limit nuclear activities to research for peaceful uses.
After initial delays in obtaining nuclear fuel, the research reactor, built by China’s Nuclear Energy Industry Corporation in 1991, began running in September last year.
Foreign analysts have expressed concern that Nigeria, a nation of more than 126-million people, is angling to become the world’s latest nuclear power, or at least posturing for overseas aid in return for abandoning such ambitions.
In May, after a visit by Pakistan’s Joint Chief of Staff General Muhammad Aziz Khan, Nigeria’s defence ministry issued a statement saying it will get Pakistani help to ”strengthen its military capability and to acquire nuclear power”.
The statement was quickly retracted and the ministry called it an error.
Another statement issued weeks earlier by the vice-president’s office — saying North Korea will provide Nigeria with missile technology — was similarly retracted.
At the time, the IAEA said Nigerian facilities were inspected regularly to prevent nuclear proliferation. — Sapa-AP