Scarcity of kerosene as most Nigeria families turn toward fire wood as cooking as cooking alternative

There was pandemonium in Canaan area of Ago Palace Way, Lagos, Monday morning, when fire ignited by a housewife to prepare meal for her family was mistaken for fire outbreak.
Hajia Halima had woken up that morning to prepare meal for her family when she discovered that the last drop of kerosene in her stove was used the previous day for the same purpose. She took the empty gallon and went straight to kerosene vendor only to be told that the same product, which she bought about a week ago at N800, is now being sold at N1, 800.
As soon as she ignited the firewood, her neigbours expressed concerns, thinking that there was fire outbreak. “I did not have any money with me and my husband who is the security guide in this building had gone out for some urgent assignment. There was no point waiting for him to return before preparing mail for my children, so I quickly gathered some sticks together and within few minutes the meal was ready. It was unfortunate that the smoke and the fire caused uproar in the area. It is better than staying without food because kerosene is expensive.
Cooking with firewood is better for my family now because we do not need to buy the wood, as we can easily gather them from the building sites around here.”
For Halima, that was a cheap alternative to tackle the kerosene scarcity. But for Madam Ngozi Ibe, a restaurant operator in the same area who uses cooking gas for her business, the alternative to gas, which is kerosene, is even more expensive than cooking gas.
She said: “As you are aware, there is also scarcity of cooking gas. Normally, we switch to kerosene whenever there is hike in the price of cooking gas. But we could not do so this time around, as the price of both products is no longer within the reach of a common man.”
In the wake of the current scarcity, the price of cooking gas across major gas plants had risen from N3, 500 for 12.5kg cylinder as at December to N4, 500 for the same quantity.
Ngozi said that she decided to continue the use of gas, even though it is expensive and pass the cost to her customers. “We cannot even consider firewood as it has also become very expensive.”
She urged government to do something about it to make life more bearable for the masses.
Kerosene, which is daily used to power stoves in most Nigerian homes, has become prohibitive in most homes and other users of the product across the nation.