A National Gas Policy that will enhance quick adoption of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) as a choice fuel for cooking in the country is in the pipeline, the Federal Government has said.

Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, who made the disclosure in Abuja on Monday, November 28 2016, during this year’s edition of the Nigeria Clean Cooking Forum, said the move was in furtherance of the government’s efforts to promote clean cooking. The Federal Ministry of Environment, in partnership with the Nigerian Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, organised the event.

In line with this, the Executive Vice Chairperson, Techno Oil Ltd., Mrs. Nkechi Obi, disclosed that the company would soon launch an ultra-modern cylinder production plant to make LPG more affordable and accessible. In addition, a coastal LPG terminal of 15000MT will be commissioned by next year, she added.

Mr. Dayo Adeshina, president, NLPG Association, underscored the need to tackle the challenges of affordability, availability, accessibility and acceptability in the rolling out of LPG on a mass scale.

While LPG is regarded as the most desired clean fuel for cooking, the consensus however is that, for years to come, poor communities all over Nigeria will depend on bio mass (firewood, briquettes).

Minister for Environment, Amina Mohammed, pointed out that internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees suffer the most energy poverty in Nigeria. She added that, in order to facilitate the displaced communities’ return home or to settle down where they wish to, providing access to energy will be a key element among the range of enabling measures.

According to her, climate change presents a growing challenge to both men and women. Its negative effects are likely to hit the poorest people in the rural parts of Nigeria which women constitute a major part of, she adds, saying: “This is even more urgent particularly in rural areas where resources are scarce and the ability to cope is lower than in the urban areas.”

Chairperson, Steering Committee of the Nigerian Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, Christine K, submits: “Typical camps for the IDPs are characterised by lack of opportunities for employment and meaningful livelihood. This contributes to youth restiveness and tension. Adopting alternative fuels and energy technologies can create jobs for IDPS, especially women and youths. The use of clean and efficient cookstoves also reduces the risks of physical and sexual attacks faced by IDP women.”

President of the Senate, Dr Bukola Saraki, who was represented by Senator Philip Aduda, the Senate Minority Whip, pledged the willingness and readiness of the National Assembly to support and pass laws that will promote clean cooking in the country. He also committed to the provision of a strong value chain for efficient and clean cookstoves and fuels that will be in line with the “Made in Nigeria” campaign.

“The Senate will work with the Federal Ministry of Environment to ensure the provision of budgetary allocations for the clean cookstoves sector in Nigeria in the 2017 budget,” Dr Saraki promised.

Managing Director of Shell, Osagie Osunbor, represented by Igo Weli, General Manager, External Relations, remarked that “Shell is doing a lot in the clean cookstoves sector by partnering with the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves in ensuring that cleaner and safer fuels are available in the country”. He emphasised the need for a strong collaboration with the executive and legislative arms of government to deliver clean cooking energy in the country.

British High Commissioner, Paul Arkwright, commended the Nigerian Alliance for Clean Cookstoves and the Federal Ministry of Environment for the initiative and re-emphasised the need to find appropriate solutions that works for Nigerian in terms of affordability and financing, among others.

Coordinator, Nigerian Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, Ewah Eleri, who was represented by Precious Onuvae, noted that cooking which should ordinarily be enjoyed by cooks has turned out to be a killer in Nigerian homes and institutions. She called on relevant Federal Government ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) to take leadership in developing policies to support the production and adoption of clean cookstoves in the country. One of such policies could be the establishment of single digit interest rate facility to strengthen local production of clean cookstoves in the country.

Director of National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Dr. Kayode Fagbemi, expressed the hope that IDP camps and IDP communities will have access to clean cooking facility.

Ms. Folake Salawu of ICEED, on her part, presented the success story from Adamawa State, where women and youth are being trained in the production and use of clean cookstoves in an IDP settlement.

Key outcomes of the daylong forum were listed to include:

• Launch a behavioural change/awareness campaign for clean and efficient cookstoves in the country;
• Set up training centres for local production of efficient biomass cookstoves in each geopolitical zones;
• Encourage clean cooking in government owned facilities like prisons, government boarding secondary schools and IDP camps, among others; and,
• Establish gas refill stations in all senatorial districts; exempt VAT for LPGs and reduce import duty on clean cookstoves parts to make it more affordable among others.

Minister of State for Environment, Ibrahim Usman Jibril, in a closing remark, stated: “The huge participation shows the importance of the forum. This is the beginning of greater things to come. The Ministry will continue to support and partner with the Nigerian Alliance for Clean Cookstoves to actualise the resolutions of this great event.”

The forum brought together over 150 participants including policymakers, private sector leaders, foundations, research institutions, development partners, women groups and civil society stakeholders to reposition Nigeria’s strategy for clean cooking.

Observers believe Nigerians suffer a “silent” energy crisis – poor access to clean cooking energy. Over 20 million households and about 122 million Nigerians are said to depend on primarily wood as a source of fuel for cooking, this is despite the abundance of modern cooking energy sources including natural gas.

According to a World Health Organisation (WHO) report on use of fuelwood, traditional use of firewood is estimated to cause 95,000 deaths annually in Nigeria. After malaria and HIV/AIDS, it is said to be the nation’s third highest killer of mostly women and children.

Ms Salawu said: “The traditional cooking method is expensive, burning up to 90% more wood than is necessary and costing poor families money that could be put to better use on education, health and nutrition. Even though the country is one of the world’s largest exporters of LPG, most Nigerian households rely on firewood for cooking.

“The cooking energy poverty is felt most among persons who are affected by internal and external crisis such as refugees and internally displaced persons. In North East Nigeria, persons displaced by the Boko Haram crisis are facing severe challenges in meeting their basic needs including access to cooking energy and fuels. Fetching of firewood around camps and host communities lead to conflicts and increase the chances of gender-based violence against women. Both boys and girls spend time that could be used for education in fetching wood for family cooking.”

There are fears that the Irhue Rainforest in Uhunmwode Local Government Area in Edo State, Nigeria, is under severe threat, no thanks to the activities of a multinational agro-allied firm.

Residents and indigenes of Orhua, Oke, Umokpe and other villages of the Irhue Clan in Uhunmwode are having sleepless night over the fact that their God-given rich and diverse lowland rainforest is being forcefully taken over by the firm to establish a single-crop oil palm plantation, apparently against public-interest.

It was gathered that the Edo State Government, the sole trustee on all lands in the state, faulted as illegal the land acquisition made by Okomu Plc, the firm at the centre of the controversy. Government thus revoked and returned the land to the Clan, and reportedly warned Okomu Company to vacate and stop planting on the vast land area. But, alas, the firm allegedly disobeyed the directive and bulldozed, along with farm crops, priceless endangered species and important land forms.

In a recent petition by the The Okpamakhin Initiative / Coalition for Protection of the Environment (COPE), villagers accused the firm of using “a divide and rule” strategy to get erring squatters on the land against original owners of the Clan and land, “in the belief that the aboriginal Irhue people are too poor to defend their inheritance and rights”.

Tony Erha, an environmentalist, who heads COPE, accused Dr. Graham Hefer, a South African immigrant to Nigeria and the company’s boss, of masterminding his company’s refusal to carry out an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) study, which the Federal Ministry of Environment had mandated the firm to carry out even before commencing the project. Erha alleged that Okomu Company midwifed “a belated and deceitful” EIA draft report, more than two and half years after it had been “doing great destruction to the land and the people.”

“If the Clan was left to resort to self-help, against unwarranted and incessant harassment with security men and direct aggression from the rampaging Okomu Company, Irhue Clan would have for long become another Niger Delta community that is crisis-ridden! Okomu Plc continues to drive them to the wall!” reads the petition.

The petition further reads: “Trouble began for the innocent Irhue Clan in February, 2014, when Okomu Plc, guarded by armed men in uniform, started bulldozing on the over 16,000 hectares (ha) of rich rainforest land, which it unduly bought from the Iyayi Group of Companies. Similarly, some years ago, Okomu Company and Dr. Hefer had illegally purchased over 15,000 ha of high forest land around the Okomu National Park, from the same Iyayi Group, which it bulldozed to extend its plantation, despite intense protests from conservationists and well-meaning public. Today, Edo State Government has also revoked this land, which destruction has greatly endangered the National Park – a globally acclaimed park and one of the last (few) protected lowland rainforest enclaves in the world.

“Irhue Clan and the fast increasing local and external population of land users, solely depend on the land for timber, water-supply and traditional worship centres. The high biodiversity of priceless flora, fauna and natural forms, had always been earmarked as extension of the Okomu National Park, by global conservation experts and institutions. From the proposed Okomu palm plantation, dangerous chemicals and effluence are being emptied into their environment and only sources of water, with deadly health consequences to the Irhue locals.

“With this impunity, are Okomu Plc and Dr. Hefer above the Law of the Land? Okomu plantation is Illegal and Must Not Stand on Irhue Clan! Degraded part of the Forest Reserve should be regenerated with trees, for the original purpose it is meant!”

In commemoration of the World AIDS Day on Thursday, December 1, 2016, WaterAid has restated that safe water, improved sanitation and good hygiene (WASH) are essential for ensuring that people living with HIV (PLHIV) live healthy and productive lives.

According to the UK-based international organisation, easy access to safe and sufficient water and sanitation is indispensable for people living with HIV and AIDS and for the provision of home-based care to AIDS patients.

The group adds that safe drinking water is necessary for taking medicines, while nearby latrines make life more tolerable for weak patients. It notes that water is also needed for bathing patients, washing soiled clothing and linen, keeping the house environment and latrine clean in order to reduce the risk of opportunistic infections. Safe and adequate water and sanitation provision increases the dignity of both patients and caregivers, it further stresses.

WaterAid Nigeria, in a statement issued on Wednesday, November 30, submits: “People living with HIV are more susceptible to WASH-related illnesses such as typhoid and skin diseases. People living with HIV are also six times more likely to acquire a diarrhoeal disease with 90% of people living with HIV experiencing diarrhoea at least once. In addition, babies born to mothers living with HIV are three times more likely to have diarrhoea.

“People living with HIV need 2 ½ times the amount of water than someone not living with the virus, and also need improved hygiene and sanitation to help prevent opportunistic infections by keeping the environment of the house and toilet clean. An adequate supply of water is essential for home-based care of PLHIV. Diarrhoea and other opportunistic infections also lead to depleted energy levels, resulting in the need for close and easily accessible toilet facilities and water for handwashing.”

WaterAid Nigeria’s Communication and Campaigns Manager, Oluseyi Abdulmalik, was quoted in the statement as saying: “Without sufficient clean water, sanitation and proper hygiene, people living with HIV will be more ill more often, and less able to live healthy and productive lives. At WaterAid, we advocate for the integration of water, sanitation and hygiene into HIV services and the fight against AIDS. Interventions around universal health coverage must include environmental factors such as water, basic toilets and good hygiene promotion within households. For people living with HIV, this would help to prevent opportunistic infections and enable healthier, more productive lives.”

In the statement, which Abdulmalik endorsed, WaterAid stresses: “Today is World AIDS Day and, at WaterAid, we believe that water, sanitation and hygiene are critical to both disease prevention and care.

“While our focus as on organisation is on Sustainable Development Goal 6 and on everyone everywhere having access to safe water and sanitation, on World AIDS Day we are also reflecting on Goal 3 (health and wellbeing) and in particular on the target of ending the global AIDS epidemic by 2030.

“This means full access to health services for all, delivered with dignity and respect. It also means adolescent girls, women, boys and men having access to appropriate HIV and sexual and reproductive health information and services, and it means every child being born free from HIV by 2030. WaterAid’s global advocacy priority, our Healthy Start campaign also focuses on the good health of babies and of their mothers.

“Today reminds us that the Sustainable Development Goals are interconnected and that the eradication of extreme poverty depends on all 17 global goals. This is why one of our strategic aims focuses on integration – working together across sectors and across goals. Clean water, decent toilets and good hygiene practice are crucial in helping us all to stay healthy, minimising the risk of infection and for the taking of retroviral drugs. Nigeria carries the second heaviest burden of HIV in Africa and the highest in West Africa.”

According to Abdulmalik, WaterAid’s vision is of a world where everyone has access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene, adding that the international organisation works in 37 countries across Africa, Asia, Central America and the Pacific Region to transform lives by improving access to safe water, hygiene and sanitation in some of the world’s poorest communities.

The Advocacy and Campaigns Coalition (ACC) has frowned at the recent cancellation of the monthly environmental sanitation exercise by the Lagos State Government, calling on the authorities to, as a replacement, urgently adopt the draft state WASH (Water, Sanitation & Hygiene) Policy and roll out an effective implementation plan.

The ACC, a platform of Civil Society Networks in Lagos State working with other relevant stakeholders to reduce mortality and morbidity from diarrhea in under-5 children within the framework of the WHO/UNICEF 7-point plan for diarrhea control, expressed dismay over the reason of “present economic realities in the country” given for the cancellation by the Lagos government.

In a statement signed by the ACC coordinator, Ms. Gbemisola Akosa, the group further demands that all relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and stakeholders responsible for the review of environmental Laws of Lagos State speed up action on them and ensure the passage of the Laws before the end of the first quarter of 2017.

Additionally, the body demands that regular updates should be given to the general populace with respect to progress on the passage of the harmonised environmental Laws.

The ACC, an initiative of Save the Children, an organisation that promotes the welfare of children, stated: “It is incontestable that improvement in mortality rates from preventable diseases such as typhoid, diarrhea, cholera and malaria, etc., was because of improved standard of environmental sanitation. Thus, we believe that a well-planned, coordinated and implemented environmental sanitation policy for disease prevention and control is what Lagos State needs at this time, given the megacity status of the state.”

Frowning at the abolition of the monthly exercise, the body submits: “With due respect, this apparent attempt to promote economic benefits above clean and healthy environment is capable of undermining people centred governance being promoted by the current administration in the state. The reality is that there cannot be economic viability without a clean and healthy environment which impacts on the productivity of the people.

“We are all the more concerned that the exercise was cancelled without any stop-gap measure in place to preserve the gains of sound environmental sanitation, self-discipline and strict adherence to standard hygiene rules and practices promoted in the last 20 years by the rested environmental sanitation exercise.

“Of utmost concern is the inability of the government to muster enough political will in adopting the Lagos State WASH Policy which has been in the pipeline for several years. These portend grave consequences for public health and sustainable sanitation especially in the face of deteriorating state of public water supply and sanitation services in the state.

“It is acknowledged  that hygiene practices are generally poor in the state due to inadequate access to portable  water (10% or roughly 2.1 million people in Lagos have access to potable water) and sanitation services as well as moral decadence to the environment. This poor state of water and sanitation has contributed significantly to the high prevalence of preventable diseases such as diarrhea, cholera, malaria and typhoid.

“Significantly, Lagos has the second highest prevalence of diarrhea rate in South West Nigeria (7.5%), after Oyo State (9.2%), having an average diarrhea incidence of 13% or 520,000 cases per annum. These diseases also account for the rise in morbidity, mortality and absenteeism in schools and at work.”

The ACC comprises: Lagos State Gender Advocacy Team (LASGAT) / Centre for 21st Century Issues (C21st) (Gbemisola Akosa), Lagos State Civil Society Partnership (LACSOP) (Ayo Adebusoye), Youth WASH (Titilola Kazeem), National Orientation Agency (Aderemi Olaniyan), Partnership for Good Governance (Vivian Emesomwu), Climate Wednesday (Olumide Idowu), Child Protection Network (Ngozi Okoro), Network for Water and Sanitation (NEWSAN), WASH Media Network (Michael Simire) and Community Coalition (Francis Ogunbanjo).