How to solve puzzles of fuel scarcity, subsidy – Aregbesola

From Oluseye Ojo, Ibadan

To solve the twin puzzles of fuel scarcity and the costly subsidy on petroleum products in the country, Minister of Interior Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola has recommended that commercial transport vehicles run on gas, a solution which he said would lead to a massive drop in the demand for petrol and diesel.

The minister made the recommendation on Monday in his address at the public presentation of a book entitled “Dimensions of Energy Poverty and Rural Electrification in Nigeria” at the International Conference Centre, University of Ibadan, which commemorated the 60th birthday of Dr Yunus Akintunde, the first person to bag a doctorate degree in Energy and Environment in the country.

Aregbesola stated this as chairman of the occasion, a former military head of state, Gen Abdulsalami Abubakar (retd), who was represented by Gen Asimiyu Olaniyi (retd), prayed for Nigeria, saying: ‘Allow me also to pray that may peace return back to our country and may we be united in finding solutions to our problems and challenges. May we have free, fair and peaceful elections come 2023.’

He noted that energy efficiency and energy management, are central to nation-building “and the fact that most countries in Africa are still groping in underdevelopment is a sign of energy poverty prevalent in the continent.

‘We need energy in our homes for domestic use, to power our appliances, including generators. We also need it to power our industries – machinery, air conditioners and other office gadgets. The whole gamut of our transportation systems on land, sea and air is dependent on energy. We need energy to live,’ the minister noted.

‘There are 11.8 million vehicles on Nigerian roads, according to the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics. These vehicles daily require 72 million litres of petrol to power them. Though energy use is necessary, it comes with its own challenges. Two are extant. The first is that some energy sources are non-renewable, meaning that once they are used, they are gone forever, compared to energy derived from the sun, wind and agriculture products, which are renewable and appears inexhaustible.

‘The environmental campaign of the last 40 years has been to have a transition from non-renewable energy to renewable and stop the use of energies that deplete the ozone layer. A lot of investment has therefore gone into energy from the sun, wind, agriculture products and nuclear plants.

‘Within the same period, automakers have been working hard to produce fuel-efficient vehicles, with each edition an improvement on the previous, but have now begun a transition to electric vehicles altogether. In the next 20 years, no new internal combustion engine vehicles will be produced. A lot of effort is also going on to produce electric airplanes, especially powered by solar energy.

‘But quite disappointingly, this concern has not been shared much in Nigeria as our addiction to cheap petroleum fuel appears insatiable. Most of our systems are still dependent on petrol and diesel, driving demand crazily for them, with the attendant consequences.

‘But we can learn a little bit from Egypt where its commercial vehicles, particularly the taxis are powered by gas. These are the old Peugeot and Renault cars that are no longer in use in Nigeria and other parts of the world, but which have been converted to use gas and are still being used because they are well maintained.

‘It is high time we borrowed from this. If all our commercial vehicles run on gas, a large chunk of the demand for petrol and diesel will drop. The mechanics will take less than a week to learn how to do the conversion and in six months, all commercial vehicles would have gone through the transition. This will reduce the cost of transportation, especially for the masses that patronise public transport systems.’

The rent was attended by dignitaries, including the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Olayiwola Adeyemi III; deputy governor of Oyo State, Rauf Olaniyan; two former deputy governors in the state, Moses Adeyemo and Iyiola Oladokun; Senator Ajibola Bashiru, representing Osun Central, and Senator Abdulfatai Buhari, representing Oyo North in the National Assembly.