Worried by the continued influx of fake and sub-standard Liquefied Petroleum Gas cylinders into Nigeria, a cooking gas advocate has warned that Nigerian homes may start experiencing ‘bomb-like’ explosions in their kitchens, on account of fake cylinders.
The warning follows reports that N38m worth of cooking gas cylinders have been impounded by the Nigerian Customs Service in the latest clampdown on importers of fake cylinders.
On August 1, the Director-General of the Standards Organisation of Nigeria, Mr. Osita Aboloma, announced that hundreds of imported cylinders were impounded for failing to meet safety requirements.
Analysts say that N38m is capable of bringing up to 1.8 million cylinders into the country. They add that less than one million Nigerian homes currently use LPG for their cooking.
The Federal Government has recently launched a campaign to ensure that up to 13.8 million households adopt LPG for their cooking in the next five years.
Speaking in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Lagos on Tuesday, a former National Coordinator of the Women in LPG group, Mrs. Nkechi Obi, expressed worry about the consequences of rampant cylinder explosions in Nigerian users’ kitchens.
She warned that such explosions would be unavoidable as long as fake and sub-standard cylinders continue to be imported into the country.
According to her, unrestricted importation of fake cylinders is a real and present danger because “it is like bringing explosives into homes, which can be deadly.
“More so, importing cylinders is harmful to the Nigerian economy and goes contrary to the quest by the nation to become self-reliant, because cylinders are now manufactured locally.
“Using fake cylinders also poses severe danger to our womenfolk, who face daily risk of death or injury in the event of explosion of fake cylinders in their kitchens.’’
Obi, who is the Chief Executive Officer of the Techno Oil Group, argued that there was need for government to come hard on countries dumping fake cylinders in Nigeria.
Obi, a long-time advocate of LPG adoption, lamented that continued importation of cylinders has been hurting Nigerian industrialists.