Ekperipke Ekpo, minister of state for petroleum resources
(gas), says President Bola Tinubu wants filling stations converted to
compressed natural gas (CNG) outlets.
Ekpo spoke at the State House after the federal executive
council (FEC) meeting on Wednesday, presided over by the president.
The minister said Tinubu “gave a charge” regarding CNG,
through the minister of information, during the FEC meeting.
“We are well aware that the president set up a presidential committee on the CNG to drive the CNG project,” Ekpo said.
“As a minister who
has been supervising what has been going on there, it is left for us to inform
the general public that CNG has come to stay, and we have to follow that route
because CNG is safe, cheaper, and protects the environment.”
He said the president spoke about ensuring that “most of the
filling stations across the country are converted into CNG stations, where you
have the conversion kits so that people can convert their vehicle to CNG”.
“It is important to note that when you are using CNG, you
save a lot of money. A litre of fuel that can go for N1000, with CNG, you get
it at N200, which saves you N800,” Ekpo said.
“I believe, with the
passion of Mr. President, the push that he has given to us, we’ll try as much
as possible to drive the CNG programme to reach all the nooks and crannies of
this country, so that we will take advantage of the natural resources (gas)
that God has endowed us with.”
On October 22, Tinubu said Nigerians can choose between
buying premium motor spirit (PMS), also known as petrol, at N1,000 per litre or
CNG at N200 per standard cubic meter.
FEC APPROVES PTDF
INITIATIVE FOR PRINTING OF 1 MILLION SCIENCE TEXTBOOKS
Also speaking to journalists, Heineken Lokpobiri, minister
of state for petroleum resources (oil), said FEC approved an initiative by the
petroleum technology development fund (PTDF) for the printing of one million
science textbooks for secondary schools.
Lokpobiri said the memo was presented on behalf of the PTDF,
which had initiated a programme called the “PTDF Stem Fund”.
“STEM is science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
Sometime ago, the PTDF, which is the creation of law, with the mandate to build
the capacity of Nigerians in oil and gas industry, came up with a program
called PTDF Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Programme,” he
said.
“They sought to obtain presidential approval and today, we
brought a memo to council to be able to print 1 million science textbooks.”
He added that the science courses that were identified as
problem areas for Nigerians are physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, and
computer science.
“It is believed that
for us to match up with the rest of the world, we needed to build capacity at
the secondary school level,” the minister said.
Lokpobiri said the programme is meant “to print one million
science textbooks that will be distributed to all the 74 local government areas
in the country, and also to support the 104 unity schools that we have in the
country, and then 122 special schools that we have in the country”.
“This memo was
brought before Council. It was approved by council. Essentially, what is
important is that this is a support and dual capacity at the secondary school
level to match up with the rest of the world in terms of technological and
engineering development. We need to lay a very solid foundation,” he said.
“Sometime ago, we found that we are lagging behind, and so
we decided that, look, we are going to build both physical and digital
libraries.”
The minister said a memo for PTDF to build digital and
physical libraries in about 1,000 secondary schools in the country, was brought
before FEC weeks ago and it was approved by the council.
Lokpobiri added that the new approval is to compliment “that
effort of the PTDF that has a mandate that will boost capacity in Nigeria”.
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