The price of Liquefied Petroleum Gas, otherwise called cooking gas, has skyrocketed exponentially over the last 10 months.
Reports have it that the cost of 20MT of LPG as of January 2020 was N3.4m, but by December 2020, it had gone up to N5.4m; N5.6m in January 2021; N6m in February 2021 and N11m in October 2021, without any signs of abatement.
Same reports say in the last 10 months, the price of the popular family 12.5kg cylinder has increased by about 240 per cent, up from N3, 000 to N10, 200.
Also, it was reported that about 65 per cent of the gas consumed by Nigerians is imported, and that only 35 per cent of gas consumption in the country is produced locally.
This scenario should be a source of great concern to any government and all patriotic citizens in Nigeria, considering the fact that the country flares by far the greater part of its abundant natural gas endowment with reckless abandon.
Sadly, this has been the case over the decades since crude oil was discovered in Nigeria. Why Nigeria has yet to fully harness its natural gas deposit resources is best left to the imagination.
If there is any time the country should strive to get the very best of its vast natural gas deposit resources for the good of the citizen, it is now. Aside from the fact that it is by far a cleaner form of energy, and less offensive to the environment, gas usage for domestic and industrial purposes comes with less exertion.
What is more, in a country where getting firewood for cooking is increasingly becoming difficult because of the horrendous activities of terrorists, who the society loves to glamourise as bandits, and where Kerosene, the favourite of the common folks, is now completely out of reach, allowing the cooking gas challenge to go unabated by government and relevant agencies is as saddening as it is distressing.
Government and its agencies should be able to envision, and anticipate the direction of the needs of the people promptly and proactively and address them without waiting for people to raise dust first. That is what governments all over the world do.
Some of the reasons adduced for the high cost of the commodity by stakeholders, according to a recent report, include the reintroduction of customs duty and Value Added Tax on imported LPG.
The troubles involved in getting forex for importation and the fact that domestic production of the commodity accounts for just 35 per cent of the country’s requirement might have forced those involved in the importation of the commodity to stop importation.
The Nigerian Association of Liquefied Petroleum Gas Marketers recently wrote an open letter to the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, pleading with him to urgently take a look at the skyrocketing price of LPG in Nigeria and do whatever he can to intervene.
The open letter was signed by the National President, NALPGAM, Olatunbosun Oladapo, and the Executive Secretary, Bassey Essien. NALPGAM is the umbrella body of operators of LPG bottling plants licensed by the statutorily empowered government agencies to carry out the business of safe bottling of cooking gas.
It is a well-known fact that Nigeria is one of the largest gas producers in Africa and a major supplier to the world.
According to the Department of Petroleum Resources, the country’s proven gas reserve stood at 203 trillion cubic feet, as of January 2021.
Yet, the country, with its about 200 million population, has continued to wallow in the endless struggle to satisfy its LPG need. This speaks directly to the failure of leadership. Nigeria, a major oil and gas producer, relies majorly on supply from import while its liquefaction company, the NLNG, though co-owned by three international oil companies, continues to focus more on exporting the same product to earn foreign exchange.
Nigeria, reports say, currently consumes about 1.2 million metric tonnes of cooking gas and only 350,000MT is being supplied to the local market by the NLNG while the larger shortfall is met through importation.
“There is an urgent need for government to walk its talk and end this circle of vicious suffering being experienced by Nigerians in a bid to get LPG to use”
Without being told, the consumer is left to bear the resultant price hike as a result of the shortfall in supply. And to get the product, the consumer must pay the price dictated by the forces of demand and supply.
Nigeria’s case is a pathetic one when it comes to petroleum products, be it gas or others. The nation’s case is akin to a farmer whose barn is filled with yams, but to meet his pounded yam consumption needs, the farmer resorts to first exporting the yam abroad and then turning around to import the pounded yam to eat it.
This is absolutely ridiculous and smacks of the dearth of creative thinking.
Only incurable corruption can fuel such a system that refuses to build new refineries, ensure holistic and realistic turnaround maintenance, or rely largely on imported gas for domestic use when the natural resource is abundantly available here in the country. It makes no sense.
Over the years, successive governments had made several efforts to boost the nation’s LPG utilisation and move the masses away from the use of charcoal, firewood and kerosene for health and environmental concerns but those efforts have yielded little or nothing.
When this current administration assumed power in 2015, it had raised the hope of Nigerians with a promise to aggressively boost the nation’s domestic LPG supply so that Nigerians would have more access to the product. But, not unexpected anyway as Nigerians are accustomed to broken government promises, six years down the road, it is still the all too well-known platitudes and palpable inertia in policy formulation and execution for which government businesses across the board are reputed, except perhaps in very few agencies.
In December 2020, the government launched its National Gas Expansion Programme, designed to enhance local gas supply and utilisation, with LPG as one of the key items in focus. And in a more audacious move, the government, in June, designated 2021 to 2030 as the decade of gas.
The simple interpretation of this is that the country will evolve from import-dependent to being able to satisfy its local gas needs by the end of the decade. Here now, a year is gone. What is on the table gives little to cheer. And that leaves critical thinkers wondering if this was not yet another mere slogan.
We call on the government to wake up and be decisive. Policy pronouncements should be matched with actions. There is an urgent need for government to walk its talk and end this circle of vicious suffering being experienced by Nigerians in a bid to get LPG to use.
If the government can’t solve this ‘low hanging fruit’ parading as a national challenge, how does one expect it to tackle the challenge posed by terrorists masquerading as bandits given the fact that they are rational beings with the capacity to plan and execute their plans with deadly precision?
