Nigeria: Government Launches Plan to Replace Firewood With Cooking Gas

In Yenagoa, capital of the oil-producing Bayelsa State, Nigeria's Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Gas), Ekperikpe Ekpo, launched on Tuesday a federal initiative aimed at expanding nationwide access to Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), commonly known as cooking gas. According to the minister, quoted by Premium Times, 'Nigeria is blessed with gas, no family should use firewood for cooking.' The choice of Bayelsa, a hydrocarbon-producing region in the Niger Delta, highlights Nigeria's energy paradox: a country richly endowed with natural gas where millions of households still rely on firewood and charcoal for cooking. This dependence fuels deforestation, indoor pollution and a domestic burden that falls mainly on women. The stakes are twofold: health-related, by reducing exposure to toxic fumes, and economic, by boosting a local LPG industry (cylinders, distribution, jobs). Yet the success of such programs historically depends on concrete factors not detailed here by the minister: subsidies, cylinder prices, rural distribution networks and the purchasing power of the poorest households. Without figures on budget or rollout timeline, the actual scale of the initiative remains, at this stage, to be confirmed by future official announcements.