ROTIMI ASHER
leading road transport and auto industry stakeholders have expressed the need for Nigeria to join the rest of the world in the ongoing migration from fossil fuel-powered vehicles to automobiles that run on Electric and natural gas.
The call was made during this year’s Nigeria Automotive Journalists’ Training Workshop held in Lagos on Thursday.
Making a presentation on the workshop’s theme: “Migration from Petrol to Electric & Gas Powered Vehicles: Opportunities & Challenges for Nigeria,” the Corps Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Dr. Boboye Oyeyemi, warned that no nation in the world can afford to be left behind in the ongoing war against global warming caused partly by carbon emission from fossil fuel-powered vehicles.
According to Oyeyemi, who was represented by the Corps’ Lagos Sector Commander, CC. Olusegun Ogungbemide, the thrust for electric vehicle development is borne out of global environmental impacts arising from Green House Gases on the Ozone layer.
He explained: “In Nigeria, nearly 90% of the transportation needs are carried out by the road mode due to cost, accessibility and availability. The effect of emissions from commuting vehicles in Nigeria calls for action.
“The effects include increased temperatures, global warming, flooding, distortions to aquatic life, health changes and melting of glaciers.”
Oyeyemi argued that migration to the use of Electric and gas-powered vehicles will lead to the gradual reduction of greenhouse gas emissions on the environment, create employment opportunities in a new field, open a new window of development of local content capacity on electric vehicles and promotion the nation’s electric power infrastructures through generation and distribution.”
“Joining this important global green energy migration,” he stressed, “will also result in diversification of unrefined crude oil to other useful avenues such as agriculture, medicine, cosmetics, construction, clothing, household items, etc.; increase in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) from sales and operations of Charge Stations; elimination of wastes from gas flaring and conversion to Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), for powering gas-powered and hybrid automobile engines.”
“This development will also lead to the introduction of a paradigm shift in national earnings on overdependence on oil to other viable options, minimize road traffic deaths arising from the carriage of dangerous goods by road and increase LNG production to meet both local and international needs for countries that will depend on Nigeria for supplies,” he added.
The FRSC Corps Marshal advised that even though migration from the petrol and diesel-powered vehicles could come with initial challenges, there is no need to entertain anxieties of the nation’s future with regards to electric vehicle emergence and usage.
He said: “The fact that Nigeria’s economy was developing prior to the discovery of oil suggests that if other potentials are properly harnessed, the country will be better off in the future.”
Oyeyemi, therefore, called on the Nigerian government to approach the forth-coming development with the right sensitization and awareness so as to adjust and get integrated seamlessly.
Also speaking on the theme,  Mr. Chinedu Oguegbu, founder of OMAA Global, dealers and assemblers of OMAA branded buses powered with Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) or Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), lamented over the health hazards gas flaring is having on Nigerians living in certain villages in the Niger Delta parts of Nigeria.
According to him, Nigeria has a competitive advantage in rolling out or converting about 20 million internal combustion cars plying Nigerian roads to run on Natural gas.
“With a gas deposit of about 203 trillion cubic feet,” he pointed out, “Nigeria is within the top 10 globally and number one in Africa. That is we have 1000 times of the value of gas compared to crude oil. Yet we have companies that come here and flare the gas. In essence, we import fuel in dollars, but burn a cleaner and more lucrative energy gas.”
OMAA Global boss, therefore, called on Nigerians and those in authority to embrace migration from the use of fossil fuel-powered vehicles to vehicles powered by gas, which according to him, does not require refining.
“Aside from the fact that our gas reserve is the cleanest,” he stressed, “embracing gas-powered vehicles will lead to over 90% reduction in carbon emission, generate up to 60% saving in cost of fuel in relative to dirty options and yield savings in foreign exchange.”
Also speaking at the event, the Director-General of National Automotive Design and Development Council (NADDC), Jelani Aliyu reiterated that EVs remain the future of automobiles globally with many countries setting targets for migration into electric vehicles, adding that Nigeria is also toeing a similar path.
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