Fear, anxiety barrier to clean cooking

Statistics shows that Nigeria produces about 4 million tonnes of cooking gas. Only about six percent of this is used in the country while the rest is exported meaning we export a clean energy source and import dirty and deadly kerosene for our households.
In 2013 alone, Nigeria spent N230 billion in subsidies to sustain the dirty kerosene business not minding the damaging effect it has on the environment.
There are capacities to take 20 million households off the dependence on traditional use of fire wood if the clean cook stove technology is correctly deployed.
Minister of Environment, Mrs Laurentia Mallam said recently that it was no longer acceptable for a Nigerian woman to die while cooking for her household. “If we imbibe and get used to the clean cook stove, our forests will have a new lease of life, and our women and children will breathe better.”
This informed the federal government’s decision to procure over 750,000 clean cook stove in the last quarter of 2014.
The clean cook technology, according to Engr. Bahijjahtu Abubakar, Head, Renewable Energy Unit of the Ministry of Environment, is a mix of different technologies some involving the use of minimal firewood while others use gas.
But the questions Nigerians are asking include how safe is the gas and is it available for the common man?
The Nigerian Association of LPG Marketers (NALPGAM) has said the consumption of Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) has increased significantly in 2014, but utilisation remains the snag.
Speaking on the market status, the association said LPG (cooking gas) moved up from 150,000 metric tonnes (mt) in 2013 to over 250,000mt in 2014.
An LPG marketer, Mrs Ngozi Obi of Techno Oil and Gas recently said LPG utilisation has also grown significantly from below 60,000mt annually to 250,000mt in recent years but decried poor awareness, distributive channels and cylinder acquisition as banes for utilisation of LPG in Nigeria.
The association said despite Nigeria having the highest gas reserve in Africa, the country still has the lowest per capita usage of 1.1kilogramme (kg). “Ghana has 3kg, Cameroon 1.9kg, South Africa has 5.5kg while Morocco has 44kg.
 “Our lower and middle classes use firewood and kerosene and over 80percent of Nigeria population are dependent on kerosene and firewood,” Ngozi explained.
She urged the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) to come up with guidelines that would incorporate gas refill in conventional filling stations. “Consumers do not need to go more than a kilometre to access a refill if the switch to LPG would be sustainable,” she noted.
NALPGAM said the growth in availability of LPG was made possible with the introduction of a supply scheme by the Nigeria Liquiefied Natural Gas (NLNG) company.  “The local refineries and that of Niger Republic are also complementing the NLGN supply source,” the association said in a statement.
The business of supplying LPG, according to the marketers, is deregulated and that affects the fluctuation of product prices at all levels of the distribution chain.
Hence, the association is calling on government to put in place appropriate domestic pricing template as “this will ensure price stability, healthy completion and ensure affordability of the product to the populace.”
The president of the association, Basil Ogbuanu in an interview called for a nationwide upgrade of gas plants to deepen the use of LPG in Nigeria. He said there were over 300 gas plants that run on outdated measuring system.
This system, he said, does not allow gas plant owners to sell cooking gas in litres but in kilogramme. “The system of gas plant in Nigeria does not meet today’s technology. Nigeria is still selling cooking gas at per 12.5kg whereas other countries have migrated to selling cooking gas per litre,” he said.
The association, in a related event, also decried the shortage of genuine LPG cylinders as it said there was ‘less than one million cylinders in circulation; more than half of those in circulation are expired.’
Although cylinder shortage is a challenge in the emerging gas market, Mrs Ngozi said the gas reserve in Nigeria is far more than oil reserve. “Our gas reserve is 187tcf with an average production capacity of over 3 million mt per year,” she said.
Mrs Agidike, a house wife in Karu area of Abuja said that following a terrible experience she had while growing up, she will never use gas in her household.
 “We lost everything we had when our house was razed down by fire from a tenant who was using gas in our compound way back then, with what I saw that day, I will never use gas to cook,” she added.
The most commonly used gas cylinder of 12.5kg is sold for N3,500 while there is also that of 6.5kg sold at N1,500.
Madam Iyabo a food vendor told Daily Trust that it is very difficult to use gas for commercial food sales and make profit. “How long will a cylinder of 12.5kg last me when I can’t finish N1000 firewood in one week?”