Towards making energy available and affordable to all and sundry by Tina Armstrong Ogbonna

A recent study by the International Centre for Energy and Environmental Development ICEED has called on the Federal Government to put a policy in place establish a national cooking energy programme and new national rural electrification programme under the power sector reform. Funding for rural electrification and cooking energy for poor people has declined over the years, and called on the Federal Government to Shown that without a new national programme on rural electrification and clean energy stoves the number of poor people in Nigeria will grow exponentially.
The Executive Director of ICEED Mr. Ewah Eleri made this known recently during a programme, on Financing Pro-Poor Energy Access in Nigeria. Mr. Eleri said lack of clean energy for cooking in rural communities has continued to increase the level of deforestation in the country as rural dwellers depend largely on firewood for cooking.
He noted that "ICEED and its partners are on a campaign that focuses on the silent energy crisis and the silent energy crisis is that of household not having access to save and affordable cooking energy.
We have a situation where government has no plans and
programmes or policies on cooking
energy". This is not acceptable, he
added.
The over dependence of rural dwellers on firewood for cooking energy has continued to increase the level of deforestation in Northern Nigeria. According to a World Bank report, Nigeria has the largest number of death due to indoor air pollution from cooking with firewood.
Mr. Eleri explained that the pro-poor energy financing campaign is calling on the Federal Government to provide adequate budget lines to expand rural electrification, significant resources to different agencies of government in the 2013 budget. Furthermore, he pointed out that Nigeria export more gas than is being used in the country. Nigeria is one of Africa's largest exporters of cooking gas but the usage is poor at home due to poor distribution channel, lack of awareness about proper use of gas cylinders that have created fear and apathy and also high upfront cost of cylinders. The Federal Government should enlighten the people about safe usage of gas cylinders; it should also put in place standard safety measures and regulations and also subsidize the price of cylinders. According to him, Lagos state government has started that and the Federal Government can follow suit. The use of cooking gas should be encouraged by making available smaller mass of cylinders because not everyone can afford the 5kg gas cylinders. In line with what has been done with recharge cards, where you can purchase as low as #100 to #1,500. Cooking gas is environment friendly.
The Federal Government should stop the flaring of gas in the country and utilize it for household energy use for cooking. Mr. Eleri believes that the Vision 20:20, Millennium Development Goal (MDG's) and the transformation agenda of the present administration would be far from been achieved if the energy poverty in the country is not aggressively tackled with the right programmes and policies in place.
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