The Federal Government of Nigeria has reassured its citizens that the planned introduction of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) buses will lead to a reduced price of CNG, bringing it down to N230 per kilogram.
This announcement was made by Toyin Subaru, the Special Assistant to the President on Special Duties and Domestic Affairs, during a stakeholders’ meeting at the Bank of Industry headquarters in Abuja on a Sunday.
This initiative comes in response to the government’s plan to deploy 11,500 CNG-powered buses nationwide starting next week. The aim is to address the transportation challenges arising from the removal of fuel subsidies.
Toyin Subaru emphasized that the introduction of CNG-powered mass transit buses will provide significant cost savings for Nigerians, potentially cutting their transportation expenses by two-thirds. Furthermore, this initiative is expected to promote the use of CNG as a viable alternative to traditional petrol.
Subaru explained, “With this CNG plan, there’s no need to import the fuel required for our vehicles. We have abundant CNG resources here in Nigeria. The plan is to distribute this gas across the country through various refueling stations.
Many vehicles are not CNG-enabled yet, so we will assist in converting them to run on both petrol and CNG. We are also developing a mobile app that will help users locate CNG stations.
This should allow Nigerians to purchase CNG at the cost of N230 per kilogram, as opposed to the current petrol price of N680 per liter. This change should lead to significant savings in transportation costs for all Nigerians.”
In addition to the CNG-powered buses, the Federal Government has ambitious plans to have one million CNG-powered vehicles on Nigerian roads by 2027.
Michael Oluwagbemi, the Programme Director of the Presidential CNG Initiative, added that the government intends to establish 1,000 conversion workshops nationwide, with the potential to create over 50,000 jobs. He stated, “Our goal, as outlined by the President in his October 1st speech, is to make 55,000 conversion kits readily available to the Nigerian public to kickstart the CNG revolution.
The President’s palliative program, which is scheduled to last until March 31, 2024, aims to roll out 55,000 conversion kits within that timeframe. However, our progress is currently constrained due to the limited number of functional workshops in the country. We estimate that we need around 1,000 workshops to achieve our goal.”
Source: NairaMetrics.com
