FG, German Company To Distribute One Million Clean Cookstoves To Reduce Firewood Usage

The Federal Government on Tuesday announced it's plan to distribute 1 million "Save80 Clean Cookstoves" per year to reduce the consumption of firewood by 80%.

The initiative is being carried out in collaboration with the German business Atmosfair.

Dr Salisu Dahiru, the director-general of the National Council on Climate Change, revealed the information to journalists when he briefed them outside of a sensitization event for North Central Women that was taking place in the Nasarawa State local government area of Keffi.

He said that the cookstove's creation and design would enable people to conserve at least 80% of the firewood used to prepare a typical family meal.

Clean Cookstove

Dahiru promised that the Federal Government would create a favourable climate for Atmosfair so that the people would always have access to and afford cookstoves.

“That is exactly what we are doing and that is why we are partnering with the private sector.

"Remember this is an invention outside Nigeria but we made it so easy.

“And governments at the Federal and the state levels have made it possible for this company to invest in Nigeria, to set up a factory in Kano and set up an assembly plan here in Agada village, Keffi where they will bring the completely nocked down pieces and assemble it.

“As far as these factories are concerned, the target is to be able to produce on an annual basis, one million of these cookstoves and distributed annual but we are starting on a phase by phase basis.

"We are going to start with about 100,000 and then increase the capacity of the assembly plant because once the existing plan is working they are going to open another one in Kebbi state so that by next year the target will reach about 500,000 on an annual basis and then we seal it up to one million per annum.”

The director-general stated that one of the most significant challenges that impacts everyone, both the wealthy and the poor, tiny or developed countries, is the issue of climate change.

Tree planting, according to Dahiru, is one method for reducing the consequences of climate change. He noted that chopping down trees was one surefire way for the globe to get affected.

“In Nigeria, we know that one of the ways we harvest and use trees is for cooking.

"Remember, we have a population of over 200 million, if 80 per cent of these 200 million are relying on firewood as the main source of energy for cooking and heating whether it is direct firewood or you are using charcoal is all firewood.

"Tell me the area that will be felt every year just to get firewood for cooking is so much that if something concrete is not done, then we will continue to deflect our forests, we will lose the forests and we will lose the soil.

"And it will not be able to support agriculture and then it will become desert and people will migrate and go to the areas where there is still little forest and the community in those places where you have little forests begin to resist them and then communal clashes will come.”

Earlier, Dr Dietrich Brockhagen noted that the cookstove not only saves roughly 80% of the cost but also comes with a 10-year warranty.

“When I first came to Nigeria 10 years ago, I travelled from the South West Lagos up to Katsina and when I saw the beautiful landscape and I met so many Nigerians and I realized how much forest was degraded.

”I saw many women cooking with firewoods and they were suffering from pollution and I said ok there must be solution to this and some of my Nigerian friends told me that even the tension between herders and farmers sometimes can be linked to erosion and land degradation.

“So, I said may be if I bring efficient cookstove to Nigeria it might be a solution and there could be changed and this is what I have been trying ever since.”

The company's chairman of the advisory board and former Nigerian ambassador to Jordan, Amb. Faruk Malami-Yabo, also made a statement during which he claimed that the cookstoves will not only improve the cooking process but also protect the environment from the harmful impacts of climate change.

Over the course of the following five years, the firm would distribute no fewer than 6.7 million cookstoves in the nation, he said.

The demonstration of the use and effectiveness of the cookstoves was cited by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) as the program's high point.