Mr Dayo Adeshina, Programme Manager, National Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) Expansion Plan in the office of the Vice president says that government has targeted three strategic ways to create awareness on the need for every home to use LPG in cooking.
Adeshina disclosed in Abuja, on Sunday that the need for the gas to be used effectively cannot be over emphasized considering its huge deposit in the country.
“The plan was to start with an awareness campaign, and that awareness campaign is targeted at government and the people.
“Government because If we don’t address the lack of knowledge within government at the sub national more importantly, you ask a question about the rural areas, we as federal government cannot just walk to go and dump cylinders in there.
“We need the state government first of all to understand what we are doing, if they don’t , we are dead on arrival. We need to meet market women, traditional ruler, artisans and different people.
“The best way is a collaborative effort with sub nationals, and we intend to state with two states in each geo-political zones,’’ he said
According to him, Lagos and Abuja have been carried out with the first initial engagement of government.
He added that other reason why it was necessary to start with states was because if government does not understand what it is doing, it would not be productive as an investor..
He noted that government would also partner with the industry players as providers of the required gas adding that the awareness campaign remained critical.
“So the second segment is the industry, government is partnering with them on infrastructure but more importantly the safety aspect because that will help government to achieve results.
“AS you know safety is very critical , you remember there has been explosions, the industry have to understand that if you don’t run at the highest safety standard, you can kill the entire industry even before we start because people already have perception that is dangerous fuel,’’ he said
According to him, the Industry needs to know that the kind of equipment to be used must be of high and international standard adding that there was the need to change the way things are done.
“For the Industry, we are clear but for the people themselves, the awareness is critical because if we don’t understand how to use a cylinder, then chances of blowing up somebody or causing fire is very high.
“We have seen situations where the areas and cultural mind sets, we have seen where women who are land owners use fire wood and when you tell them about LPG, they say it is for big people and you cannot reconcile how a land owner feels that they cannot afford cylinder and stove,’’ he said.
He said that it was unfortunate that even in Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in Bwari Council, that many people still use firewood adding that newly weeded still given fire wood as special gift to their husbands.
He noted that these were the kind of things that needed to stop by engaging through awareness adding that both the state and local government have roles to play.
He said that going forward the awareness train would move to Ebonyi, Bauchi, Gombe, Enugu, Delta, Bayelsa Sokoto, Katsina and Nigeria.
