The Federal government of Nigeria has identified three sectors to create awareness on the need for every home to use LPG in cooking.
Mr Dayo Adeshina, Programme Manager, National Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) Expansion Plan said this in a special interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.
He said that the need for the gas to be used effectively cannot be overemphasized considering its huge deposit in the country.
“The plan was to start with an awareness campaign, and that awareness campaign is targeted at three sectors, government and the people.
“Government because we need to increase awareness of knowledge within government at the sub national. We as federal government cannot just walk to go and dump cylinders in there (grassroots).
“We need the state government first of all to understand what we are doing, if they don’t, we are dead on arrival. We need to meet market women, traditional rulers, artisans and different people.
“The best way is a collaborative effort with sub nationals, and we intend to start with two states in each geo-political zone,’’ he said.
According to him, sensitisation in Lagos and Abuja have been carried out with the first initial engagement of government.
He added that other reason it was necessary to start with states was because if government does not understand what it is doing, it would not be productive for an investor.
He noted that government would also partner with the industry players as providers of the required gas, adding that the awareness campaign remained critical.
“So the second segment is the industry, government is partnering with them on infrastructure but more importantly the safety aspect because that will help government to achieve results.
“As you know safety is very critical , you remember there has been explosions, the industry have to understand that if you don’t run at the highest safety standard, you can kill the entire industry even before we start because people already have perception that it is dangerous fuel,’’ he said.
According to him, the industry needs to know that the kind of equipment to be used must be of high and international standard.
“For the Industry, we are clear but for the people themselves, the awareness is critical because if we don’t understand how to use a cylinder, then chances of blowing up somebody or causing fire is very high.
“We have seen situations where the areas and cultural mindsets, we have seen where women who are land owners use fire wood and when you tell them about LPG, they say it is for big people and you cannot reconcile how a land owner feels that they cannot afford cylinder and stove,’’ he said.
He said that it was unfortunate that even in Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in Bwari Council, that many people still use firewood, adding that newly wedded are still given fire wood as special gift to their husbands.
He said the awareness train would move to Ebonyi, Bauchi, Gombe, Enugu, Delta, Bayelsa Sokoto, Katsina and Niger states.
