By Mercy Peter
As part of the efforts to address the impact of subsidy removal of Petroleum product, especially in the rural areas, Federal Government on Friday announced a collaboration with private firms to roll out Compressed Natural Gas “Keke NAPEP” across the country.
This was disclosed at a joint press briefing by Nigerian Orientation Agency, SIMBA Group of Companies, and Ecomead.
The Director General, NOA, Lanre Issa-Onilu said the project is focused on touching the lives of ordinary Nigerians especially those living in the rural areas, and in consonant with Mr President’s renewed hope agenda.
Issa-Onilu revealed that the Federal Government has also established about 10,000 CNG stations across the country to ensure the availability of compressed natural gas to the users of the newly launched tricycles.
He assured Nigerians that the CNG Keke NAPEP will drastically reduce the high cost of transportation and other similar challenges currently experienced by Nigerians.
He also stated that the CNG is environment friendly and will reduce the pollution caused by the use of petrol, and by extension address image change
The tricycle is said to consume less fuel compared to the existing tricycles that use petrol, and as such will cut down the cost of transportation to the barest minimum.
The CEO of Ecomead, Kayode Oyin-Zubair said there are 1000 of the already converted keke on ground.
He however said that the firm can configured 5,000 keke to use both petrol and CNG in a month.
Oyin-Zubair assured that the CNG-powered tricycle will ameliorate the impact of the fuel subsidy removal on the cost of transportation for the benefit of all Nigerians.
“The CNG is environment-friendly and it will ameliorate the problems of Nigerians. We have put in place a mechanism to get them to the 774 LGAs across the country,” he said.
He also noted that the project iseant to provide succour to Nigerians in terms of transportation.
Also, representative of Wandel International and Simba Group of Companies, Sharma Shamrat said “Let’s say in Nigeria CNG looks new, but CNG is a certified product which has been used all over India. Now, let’s say when I talk about India, we’re talking about 1.5 billion people. The population itself is so huge that needs alternative transport means.
“Now, if a country that big continues to put on petrol and diesel in their vehicles, how much of the damage will be caused to the planet? Mother Nature is not going to hold for too long before it is too late, we need to make the change. Here in Nigeria, CNG seems to be the option.”
