The Presidential Compressed Natural Gas Initiative (P-CNGI) says the CNG sector has attracted over 500 million dollars investments and created over 10,000 direct jobs.
The P-CNGI said that 255 new conversion centers that did not exist in 2024 and 53 daughter stations existed currently.
Programme Director/Chief Executive Officer, P-CNGI, Mr. Michael Oluwagbemi, yesterday emphasised that Nigeria is making progress in expanding the CNG infrastructure and investments.
Oluwagbemi, however, said that engineering feats took time.
He recalled that from May 2024, the P-CNGI set out to implement its mandate in line with the directive and vision of President Bola Tinubu.
He highlighted the mandates to include incentivising the adopting CNG and Electric Vehicles to ensure sustainable transportation for all Nigerians, and facilitating investments into the alternative energy sector for transportation.
According to him, the programme is also charged to coordinate regulation of the emerging sector for rapid growth and Nigeria is making progress in expanding the CNG infrastructure and investments across the nation.
He said that because the initial desire of the President was greeted with scepticism, the start-up work of the P-CNGI 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 NNPC Ltd.
“Our most ardent adherents were not convinced that anyone will want CNG vehicles.
“Misinformation and fake news on CNG dominated the media space. We are pleased that even the doubting Thomases are singing a new tune,” he said.
He further said that with over 50,000 vehicle count and rising to 100,000, the queues at CNG stations were naturally going to rise, because of such unprecedented increase (from mere 4000) in vehicle count.
This, he said, is as a result of massive incentive provided by the administration and the breakthrough in awareness due to the economic benefits of the switch.
“Just last week, two new daughter stations in Abuja were commissioned with AY Shafa and Femadec investing in these ventures.
“Both entities have nine and 21 daughter stations respectively in the works in the next one year.
“For Femadec, the dual benefit of leading the charge of building CNG ecosystem in 20 universities is an icing on the cake,” he said.