FROM EIR DAILY ALERT
Transaqua Panelists Address Lake Chad Conference in Nigeria, to Enthusiastic Reception
Feb. 28, 2018 (EIRNS)—The Feb. 26-28 International Conference on Lake Chad, in Abuja, Nigeria, included the much-expected panel on Transaqua yesterday, with Italian engineering firm Bonifica and PowerChina that will carry out the feasibility study. Transaqua, the plan to move water from the Congo River to replenish the depleted Lake Chad, was developed by Bonifica some 35 years ago and has recently receiving the backing of the huge PowerChina construction firm.
The conference is being sponsored by the Lake Chad Basin Commission, the Nigerian government, and UNESCO.
All four panelists were passionately in favor of Transaqua. The hall was standing-room only, and to say that the presentations were well received is an understatement. The subsequent open discussion with the audience could have gone on indefinitely, with many hands still raised when the chairman had to bring the panel to a close.
EIR correspondent Claudio Celani intervened twice, at the beginning and at the end. At the beginning, he announced the Italian government decision to donate half the funding for the feasibility study, generating enthusiastic applause, as EIR Daily Alert reported in its Feb. 27 issue. Celani then further developed the how Transaqua can be a model of cooperation for the New Paradigm among Africa, China, and Europe, adding that Africans bear this extra responsibility to make it successful.
At the end, Celani responded to a questioner who asked how to politically convince countries such as the Congo which are still reluctant to join, due to disinformation campaigns under the slogan that “they are stealing your water.” Celani explained the concept of the “advantage of the other,” that clinched the success of the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia. When the Chancellor of the meeting asked what summary of the panel should be written in the official resumé, the chairman strongly supported that Celani’s point on the New Paradigm model should be included.
Later, Celani participated with the Bonifica group in the Council of Ministers’ meeting, where Bonifica and PowerChina made a joint presentation.
