Kunle Kalejaye 11 November 2015, Sweetcrude, Lagos – The Executive-Vice Chairman of Techno Oil Ltd, Mrs Nkechi Obi, has disclosed that up to 30 million Nigerian households using kerosene and firewood faced severe health hazards.
Speaking at the recent Oil Trading Logistics Expo in Lagos, she said the hazards often arise from the side effects of smokes emanating from use of firewood and kerosene.
“Cooking with firewood is a silent killer because firewood smoke is more dangerous than cigarette smoke,” she said.
Citing a recent World Health Organisation report, Mrs. Obi said that cooking with firewood often led to indoor pollution, which globally accounted for over four million deaths every year.
Obi, who received Federal Government’s commendation few years ago for her “Techno Oil Cooksafe Initiative” in popularising cooking gas, said she was looking forward to when most Nigerian households would embrace the liquefied petroleum gas, LPG.
The techno Oil boss used her advocacy, the Techno Oil Cooksafe Initiative, through an emotional documentary to alert government to the consequences of prolonged use of biomass and kerosene for cooking which has led to increased lung diseases, aggravated asthma, premature death and greenhouse emission, leading to climate change.
She argued that there was need to exploit Nigeria’s huge gas reserves, estimated at about 187 trillion cubic feet, stressing that Nigeria still ranked lowest in sub-Saharan Africa in per capita usage of LPG, consuming only 1.1-kilogramme, compared with Ghana at 3-kilogramme.
Obi, however, listed some challenges that had been making it difficult for more Nigerians to embrace LPG to include inadequate public awareness on safety, limited distributive outlets and high cost of LPG cylinders.