Residents of Lagos and Ogun states are lamenting as the price of 12.5kg of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), otherwise known as cooking gas rose from N3,800 in October 2020 to N7,500 in October 2021.
This represents 97.37 percentage increase in the 12 months. Nigerian Tribune investigations showed that except urgent steps are taken to ease bottlenecks affecting the supply of LPG to consumers, the price of 12.5kg gas cylinder may hit N10,000 before December 2021.
Findings further showed that a 12.5kg cooking gas cylinder was sold in Lagos for N3,800 in October 2020, N4,500 in June and July 2021, N6,000 in September, and now N7,500 in Lagos and Ogun states, depending on locations.
Major fear among consumers and stakeholders is that the price may jump to N10,000 soonest unless urgent steps are taken to increase local production and improve supply to the market. Experts who spoke with Nigerian Tribune blamed the price hike of LPG on dearth of infrastructure, global shortfall in gas supply, inadequate local production, shortage of FOREX, devaluation of naira and logistic hitches.
Already, the current price hike has triggered the use of charcoal and kerosene stoves as alternatives by some residents in Lagos and Ogun states.
Most of these consumers who have been lamenting over the price hike narrated their harrowing experiences to the Nigerian Tribune when interviewed.
They said they have found it difficult to cope with the price hike, thereby, alternating between the use of charcoal and kerosene stoves. Lamenting, a resident in Ojodu, Lagos, who identified herself simply as ‘Mummy Faith,’ a trader, said that incessant hike in cooking gas price had affected other commodities in the market.
According to her, the situation has gone beyond control among people with low purchasing power, adding that she would not mind going back to the use of firewood and kerosene stoves if the price continues to rise.
“If someone like me is lamenting, you can imagine what hundreds of other residents are going through.
“Many of them have gone back to firewood and charcoal for their domestic cooking. You can see my coal-pot here,” she said.
According to the woman, it’s becoming cheaper to cook with charcoal at N200 per bucket of paint than buying 3kg of cooking gas at N2,000 or 12.5kg at N7,500, excluding transportation. Another resident in Magboro, Ogun State, Mrs Taibat Olubisi, said with the increase in the price of cooking gas, she only cooked once in a day and micro-waved the food with electricity in the evening.
For other residents in the neighbourhood, she said some now patronise charcoal and firewood dealers, without considering the health implications.
“It is not that we want to use charcoal, but because the price of cooking gas is going beyond our reach; we have to cut our coat according to our cloth. We still have other responsibilities begging for attention,” Olubisi said.
One Mr Oguntola, on his Facebook page, decried the astronomical rise in the price of cooking gas.
He wrote: “The 12.5 gas cylinder I bought for N3,800 last year is now N7,500.”
A resident of Ogba, Mr Femi Aliu, said the increase in the price of cooking gas had affected the price of a plate of food sold to customers by food vendors.
A gas retailer in Abule-Egba, Mrs Pat Okafor, said: “They also called us that the price has increased from the depot. So we don’t have any choice than to jack up the price. It is what we bought that we are selling.”
As of the time of filing this report, there was no solution in sight for the rising price of cooking gas as the major supplier, the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG), blamed marketers for their inability to offtake the full 450,000MTPA of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) allocated to the Nigerian market.
The reasons for the hike in price is due to the re-imposition of Value Added Tax on imported LPG and fallen in supply of LPG.
Source: The Tribune
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