LAGOS The Nigerian government has agreed to spend 10.5 billion naira ($93.75 million) on a satellite project over the next three years, but is not yet planning to put Nigerians in space, AFP quoted officials as saying on Friday. President Olusegun Obasanjo and his cabinet earlier this week approved the setting up of a national space council, headed by the president, to oversee the project. "This is a serious project, we are planning, with serious benefits for Nigerians, in terms of science, weather plotting, agriculture and communications," Science and Technology Minister Turner Isoun told AFP. Asked whether Nigeria would soon join other nations which have put a citizen into space, he said: "That is not a priority right now." A Western financial official, charged with overseeing the economic planning of the heavily-indebted African country, said he understood the arguments for a space program, but disagreed. "A space program? Why not. But perhaps thinking about the health needs, education, roads, paying peoples' salaries and so on ought to be higher up the list." Nigeria currently has a foreign debt of between $28 and $32.3 billion and its president is a strong proponent of debt relief. An initial "takeoff" grant for the space council of three billion naira ($26.7 million) has already been paid out and will be followed by yearly allocations of 2.5 billion naira, officials said Friday. The aim of the project is to launch a satellite communications system and carry out space capability research, they said.