Environmentalists have warned that the country may experience a high level of deforestation leading to severe climate change if nothing is done to bring down the prices of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), better known as cooking gas, and kerosene.
As this happens, Nigeria For Women Project (NFWP) in Taraba State, recently introduced women to briquette, an alternative to fuel wood in Bali Local Council, while stressing the need for them to embrace the alternative source of cooking to prevent health challenges arising from the smoke that comes from firewood.
The warning by environmentalists was on the heels of the latest report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), which indicated that the prices of cooking gas and kerosene have skyrocketed.
According to the NBS, the average retail price per litre of household kerosene increased by 3.68 per cent in July this year. Consumers paid N789.75 compared to N761.69 recorded in June 2022.
Yearly, the price per litre of the product rose by 98.76% from N397.34 in July 2021.
According to the NBS, the average retail price for refilling a 5kg cylinder of cooking gas increased by 4.25 per cent on a month-on-month basis, from N4, 218.38 recorded in June 2022, to N4, 397.68 in July 2022.
On a year-on-year basis, this rose by 105.35 per cent from N2, 141.59 in July 2021.
Speaking in an interview with The Guardian, the Deputy Executive Director, Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria, Mariann Bassey-Orovwuje, said with the rising cost of kerosene and cooking gas, the people are constrained to use firewood or charcoal to cook their food if they cannot afford gas or Kerosene.
“It is a difficult time for Nigerians. The prices of gas and Kerosene are rising beyond the reach of average Nigerians and they must cook their food; they must survive.
“Even as an environmentalist, it is difficult to advise people not to fell trees to get firewood. The implication is that we are going to have deforestation and that will lead to climate change,” she explained.
Bassey-Orovwuje who explained that “gas can be piped to people’s homes as it is done in other countries, and that will make it cheaper for the people to use,” therefore called on the government to find a lasting solution to the energy crisis in the country. Also reacting, the Director, Policy Centre, Abuja Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) Dr. Olawale Rasheed, said: “Many households are suffering and I lack words of consolation. I see many people falling back to firewood and charcoal and that means that we are going to have more trees cut down. That will worsen the climate change that we are already suffering.”
He advised that if at all the government should retain subsidies, it should be on gas and kerosene.
The state coordinator of the NFWP, Isaac F. Yarafa, while introducing women to alternative fuel wood said that the group decided to embark on a seven-day briquettes training for the women, to protect them against some health challenges arising from the smoke that comes from firewood.
Yarafa who enumerated the benefits that women will derive from the use of the fuel wood energy source added that the resort to this will equally prevent them from attacks, and incidents of rape, which they are often exposed to in the bush while sourcing for firewood.
The state Commissioner of Women and Child Development, Bridget Twar, said the project frowned at firewood and charcoal businesses, hence the government cannot support “such negative businesses.”
She assured them of the state government’s support for the initiative, which is “designed by the project to help alleviate the suffering of our women who are daily involved in the use of firewood and charcoal for home use, which has attendant health and environmental implications.”
