The Presidential Compressed Natural Gas Initiative, an agency of the Federal Government, has announced that Nigeria’s push towards alternative transportation fuels has attracted more than $500m in investments.
The agency recently revealed that over 50,000 vehicles have been converted to run on Compressed Natural Gas within its first year.
Reacting to a press release that lambasted a sluggish rollout of CNG infrastructure across Nigeria, the Programme Director and Chief Executive of PCNGI, Michael Oluwagbemi, described the report as false and untrue, saying that it does not reflect the actual progress being recorded.
He stated that rapid progress has been made with the push towards alternative transportation, and President Bola Tinubu’s administration deserves a lot of praise for remaining committed to the cause.
According to him, the programme, which officially started in May 2024, has already created more than 10,000 direct jobs, while leading to the establishment of 255 new vehicle conversion centres and 53 CNG dispensing daughter stations nationwide.
Confirming that the initiative was launched to incentivise the adoption of CNG and electric vehicles, Oluwagbemi said that all hands remain on deck to aid investments in the alternative energy transport sector, while also coordinating regulatory efforts to trigger growth.
“We note the latest alarmist headlines on the fate of the thriving CNG sector by a sceptical section of the media. But such narratives ignore the incredible progress made in just seven months,” he said.
He maintained that before May 2024, the adoption of CNG in Nigeria was virtually non-existent, with only 11 CNG stations all across Nigeria, and a large amount of misinformation about CNG use.
He, however, hailed the current administration for boosting the interest of Nigerians by keeping the people informed with the correct developments and staying committed to guaranteeing sustainable transportation for all Nigerians.
He concluded by saying that PCNGI had no choice but to embark on an intensive awareness campaign because President Tinubu’s vision was initially greeted with a lot of scepticism.
“From May 2024, the PCNGI set out to implement its mandate in line with the directive and vision of Mr President, which was to: Incentive the adoption of CNG and EV vehicles to ensure sustainable transportation for all Nigerians, facilitate investments into the alternative energy sector for transportation and coordinate regulation of the emerging sector for rapid growth.
Because the initial desire of the President was greeted with scepticism, the start-up work of the PCNGI was to embark on an intensive awareness campaign which was conducted from May to October 2024; hardly any CNG vehicles were on our roads and no demand at the few eleven CNG stations nationwide since a 2017 pilot by NNPCL,” he added.
