Officials Cut Ribbons on Gas Hubs While Drivers Wait

Ekperikpe Ekpo, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Gas), cut the ribbon on three gas facilities in Kano this week. He called them "important investments in expanding gas distribution and improving access to cleaner energy." The people who actually drive Kano's transport economy weren't the ones holding the scissors.

The facilities, built by Rolling Energy with support from the Midstream and Downstream Gas Infrastructure Fund (MDGIF), include a liquefied compressed natural gas (LCNG) distribution hub and retail station at Tamburawa, in Dawakin Kudu Local Government Area, and an LCNG daughter and retail station at Hotoro, in Tarauni Local Government Area. The Tamburawa hub handles 300,000 standard cubic metres of gas per day. Hotoro handles 21,000.

Who Has the Power

Follow the chain of command. The Federal Government commissions. A fund, MDGIF, supports. A private company, Rolling Energy, builds and runs. The Kano State Government is named as a partner. A presidential initiative, Pi-CNG, sets the conversion agenda. Ismail Ahmed, its Executive Chairman, didn't even attend. His goodwill message was delivered by Omor Imobirehe, Head of Technical Training and Capacity Development.

Ahmed called the arrangement among MDGIF, Rolling Energy, the Kano State Government and the Federal Government "the kind of cooperation required to move CNG adoption from policy commitments to wider public use." He singled out collaboration between government institutions, private investors and operators as critical to developing the domestic gas market. Ekpo said MDGIF matters because it mobilises private-sector investment. Public machinery, in other words, exists to pull private capital in.

Who Gets Squeezed

Ahmed described Kano as strategically important because of its large transport economy and "the number of people who depend on affordable mobility to earn a living and move goods and services." Those are the drivers and traders at the bottom of this arrangement. Their vehicles are the product being converted. Their fuel bills are the market being opened.

The pitch to them comes with a catch, and Ahmed said it plainly: "Conversion without refuelling infrastructure will not deliver the transition we want. The two must grow together." Drivers are being asked to convert first, on the promise that stations will follow. Ahmed said nearby refuelling stations would "encourage commercial drivers to convert" and give fleet operators "greater confidence to invest." The risk of converting sits with the people who can least afford a stranded vehicle. The confidence being built is the confidence of fleet owners with capital.

Pi-CNG used the commissioning to call for more investment in refuelling facilities to keep pace with vehicle conversion programmes. Read that again. The programme is already converting vehicles faster than the pumps exist.

What They're Calling "Progress"

Ahmed said affordability, availability and safety "must remain central" as more Nigerians embrace gas-powered transportation. He said more facilities across communities would make the energy transition tangible "rather than leave it as a policy aspiration." Ekpo promised "more affordable energy options for consumers" and said increased use of Nigeria's gas resources would "create economic opportunities."

No prices appear in any of this. No fuel cost per cubic metre. No conversion fee. No word on who owns the stations or who collects the margin. The affordability that "must remain central" is a pledge, not a number.

The push is also spreading. The commissioning came shortly after Rolling Energy inaugurated another CNG facility in Karu, Abuja, and amid efforts to expand LNG and CNG infrastructure across northern Nigeria, where, in the base report's words, transport operators, industries and businesses are "potential beneficiaries." Potential. Not promised.

The Alternative

Nothing in the official account mentions drivers, unions or neighbourhoods having any say in where these stations go, how they're priced or who profits. Decisions flow from ministers, funds and a private operator down to people who are told to convert and wait. Transport workers in Kano already organise the movement of goods and people every day. A transition that began with them, rather than with a ribbon-cutting, would look very different from this one.