Nigeria: Government launches plan to replace firewood with cooking gas

In Yenagoa, capital of the oil-rich Bayelsa State, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Gas) Ekperikpe Ekpo launched a federal initiative on Tuesday aimed at rolling out widespread access to liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), or cooking gas, across Nigeria. 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 depend on wood and charcoal for cooking. This dependence fuels deforestation, indoor pollution, and a domestic burden falling mostly on women. The stakes are twofold: health, by reducing exposure to toxic smoke, and economic, by stimulating a local LPG sector (cylinders, distribution, jobs). However, the success of this type of program 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 data on the budget or deployment schedule, the true scale of the initiative remains, at this stage, to be confirmed by upcoming official announcements.