The Minister of State, Petroleum, Timipre Sylva, has called on advanced nations to allow Africa to use gas as its energy transition fuel to meet the energy needs of over 600 million Africans.
Sylva, who spoke recently, described as unfair the call by such nations for Africa to abandon its hydrocarbon deposits.
He said for anyone to say “we (Africans) should abandon our abundant hydrocarbon deposits for the uncertainties of renewable energy is most unfair. As we speak today, we still have people without clean cooking fuels.
“In Africa, we have over 600 million people without basic energy, so how do we meet their energy baseload? We can only achieve this through gas. It’s only through a multi-pronged approach that we can achieve this.
“It is obvious that we cannot move at the same pace with the rest of the world as far as the energy transition programme is concerned,” the petroleum minister said in a statement by the Senior Adviser (Media and Communications), Horatius Egua.
The minister’s statement followed a collective decision by African petroleum and energy ministers to present a common voice at the COP27 scheduled for Egypt in November, for Africa to be allowed to continue to exploit its hydrocarbon deposits for the development of the continent.
On the direction for the country, he said, “Nigeria will continue to drive the direction of the narrative for the African energy transition programme. We have stood out to say no to a single-track energy transition programme and will continue to support a transition agenda that will promote gas and renewed investments in the hydrocarbon sector for Africa.
“Nigeria will continue to advocate for gas as a transition fuel for Africa. We have said that we cannot move at the same pace with the rest of the world because we contribute less than 2% of the global greenhouse gas emission.
“We are not the problem and we cannot be made to pay for the sins we did not commit.”
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