The price of cooking gas has always been one I could count on to fall even if it has risen, but the way it is increasing by the day that day may not come soon, if ever. A 12.5kg that used to sell for N3,600, N4,200 has gone to N6,500 and is now N7000, up by 13% in six weeks, according to reports. Some houses use two or three cylinders in a month.
In those days, gas was not used by many as it was seen as only for those fairly well off since you have to buy a gas cooker and the cylinder and the type of appropriate kitchen to put them in. Still some were so used to cooking with firewood that they didn’t want to use gas.
But kerosene stoves became common; you could buy a small quantity in a bottle which is easier for people.
However, some people believed that gas was cheaper than kerosene, only that you have to buy the gas cooker and cylinder.
Then, over the years there were campaigns encouraging people to embrace the use of gas and abandon firewood to save the ecosystem.
Gradually with the introduction of small gas cylinders that come with the burners, some call them camp gas used by students, many households who wouldn’t be able to afford gas cookers with ovens and big cylinders buy them.
With these small cylinders people would be able to buy even N1,000 gas if they could not refill it.
However, with the rising price of gas people are suffering, they pay through their nose, as some resort to firewood and coal, made of firewood too. So far, I have not yet seen anyone who has gone back to kerosene.
It is not only households that are affected, those that have restaurants or cook for events are also affected, as there are very big gas stoves for giant pots. Even during Sallah or other ceremonies people use them.
I watched one man that runs a restaurant on television lamenting the gas price hike, saying even if they wanted to use firewood, where would they get it?
And definitely those doing business using cooking gas have to increase their prices and the strain keeps piling on the already over stretched people burdened with so many things, such as electricity bills.
Last year, when fuel subsidies were said to be removed due to deregulation, people were encouraged to go for gas as an alternative fuel for their cars.
The Federal Government said that Nigerians could convert cars using petrol to gas, which was cheaper, with effect from October 2020.
The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, disclosed this during a press briefing with newsmen in Abuja on Thursday, September 11, 2020.
Then one expert pointed out that he hoped it would not be the case as with cooking gas where people were encouraged to use it but it was not as cheap as people were made to believe. And this was a year ago, not now!
In any case wives are now on edge, since normally some husbands hate to be told that an item has finished, they believe that it finishes too soon. And this is the same with cooking gas, though some women leave water to keep boiling for long while they go about doing other things.
One day in such a case the husband stopped buying gas, the wife had to resort to kerosene.
Now if a husband threatens to stop buying gas, kerosene is not an option and even firewood is no longer cheap where they get it.
Years ago when some states banned the felling of trees which are used for firewood, people wondered if they had provided an alternative. Of course they didn’t and now the so-called alternative is proving to be beyond the reach of the people.
However, while there is argument between Nigeria LNG Limited and the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, IPMAN where LNG said IPMAN didn’t have enough infrastructure to take up its liquefied petroleum gas supply, and on the other hand IPMAN blaming the rising cost due to lack of supply, the issue needs to be solved urgently.
