The Chairman of the Presidential Initiative on Compressed Natural Gas and Electric Vehicles (PI-CNG&EV), Ismael Ahmed, has proposed making the transition from petrol and diesel to CNG mandatory for commercial vehicles.
He made the proposal during an interview on Arise News TV while discussing the government’s alternative-fuel programme and the need to expand its reach nationwide.
The proposal comes as the Federal Government, through the PI-CNG&EV, has provided CNG buses to subnational governments to support efforts to reduce transportation costs and ease the impact of rising fuel prices on commuters.
Ahmed said the government should mandate commercial vehicles to move away from Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) and diesel and adopt alternative fuels, arguing that the focus has now shifted from proving the technology works to achieving nationwide scale.
He also pointed to Nigeria’s estimated 200 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves, saying the country has the technology to compress the resource for transportation.
Lagos has already adopted a similar approach in its regulated public transport system, with the Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (LAMATA) no longer accepting new diesel buses from operators.
The shift is also helping Lagos manage rising operating costs. Akinajo said diesel, which sold for about N950 per litre at the start of the year, now costs between N1,950 and N2,100 per litre, depending on the source.
Alternative fuels development consultant Omid Hamidkhani, who spoke to Nairametrics, said a wider transition would require reliable gas supply, refuelling infrastructure, financing, regulation and safety systems.
He said Nigeria’s large gas reserves would not be sufficient if the infrastructure needed to deliver the fuel to vehicles remained inadequate.
Hamidkhani called for targeted government support for refuelling infrastructure through tax incentives, import-duty relief, low-cost financing and land support, while stressing that such measures should encourage private investment.
He also warned that relying heavily on trucks to move compressed gas from mother to daughter stations could become inefficient as demand grows, given Nigeria’s size, road conditions and logistics costs.
He recommended combining pipelines, CNG trucking and L-CNG depending on location and demand, while also prioritising safety, local technical capacity and coordination across the industry.
The Federal Government is expanding infrastructure and vehicle conversions under its alternative-fuel programme as it seeks to lower transportation costs. President Bola Tinubu has said state governments agreed to leverage the lower operating costs of CNG and electric buses to support fare reductions from October 1.
The government is targeting the conversion of one million commercial petrol vehicles to CNG by 2027. About 120,000 vehicles had been converted as of the latest data published on the PI-CNG&EV website, while the initiative has attracted more than $2.5 billion in investment.
