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The Chairman of the Presidential Initiative on Compressed Natural Gas and Electric Vehicles (PI-CNG&EV), Ismael Ahmed, has proposed making the transition from petrol and diesel to CNG mandatory for commercial vehicles.
He made the proposal during an interview on Arise News TV while discussing the government’s alternative-fuel programme and the need to expand its reach nationwide.
The proposal comes as the Federal Government, through the PI-CNG&EV, has provided CNG buses to subnational governments to support efforts to reduce transportation costs and ease the impact of rising fuel prices on commuters.
Ahmed pushes mandatory CNG transition
Ahmed said the government should mandate commercial vehicles to move away from Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) and diesel and adopt alternative fuels, arguing that the focus has now shifted from proving the technology works to achieving nationwide scale.
- “We need to move to a point where we are going to mandate as a government that all commercial vehicles must run away from fuel, from PMS and diesel,” he said.
- Ahmed said Nigeria has about 12 million vehicles, with an estimated 55% to 60% being commercial vehicles, making the segment critical to any nationwide transition.
- He said the programme had already resulted in lower fares on some routes where CNG and electric vehicles operate, although the savings have not reached passengers as widely as desired.
He also pointed to Nigeria’s estimated 200 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves, saying the country has the technology to compress the resource for transportation.
Lagos tightens alternative-fuel bus policy
Lagos has already adopted a similar approach in its regulated public transport system, with the Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (LAMATA) no longer accepting new diesel buses from operators.
- The policy, which took effect at the beginning of 2026, requires new buses entering the regulated system to run on CNG or electricity, while existing diesel buses are to be progressively replaced.
- LAMATA Managing Director/CEO, Engr. Mrs. Abimbola Akinajo, said the policy is also linked to efforts to reduce transport emissions.
- LAMATA had about 150 CNG buses before receiving 20 additional high-capacity buses under the Presidential Initiative on CNG and EV. Some of the new buses are expected to serve the high-demand Ikorodu-TBS corridor.
The shift is also helping Lagos manage rising operating costs. Akinajo said diesel, which sold for about N950 per litre at the start of the year, now costs between N1,950 and N2,100 per litre, depending on the source.
CNG transition needs stronger infrastructure
Alternative fuels development consultant Omid Hamidkhani, who spoke to Nairametrics, said a wider transition would require reliable gas supply, refuelling infrastructure, financing, regulation and safety systems.
He said Nigeria’s large gas reserves would not be sufficient if the infrastructure needed to deliver the fuel to vehicles remained inadequate.
Hamidkhani called for targeted government support for refuelling infrastructure through tax incentives, import-duty relief, low-cost financing and land support, while stressing that such measures should encourage private investment.
He also warned that relying heavily on trucks to move compressed gas from mother to daughter stations could become inefficient as demand grows, given Nigeria’s size, road conditions and logistics costs.
He recommended combining pipelines, CNG trucking and L-CNG depending on location and demand, while also prioritising safety, local technical capacity and coordination across the industry.
Federal CNG rollout targets one million
The Federal Government is expanding infrastructure and vehicle conversions under its alternative-fuel programme as it seeks to lower transportation costs. President Bola Tinubu has said state governments agreed to leverage the lower operating costs of CNG and electric buses to support fare reductions from October 1.
- Ahmed, however, said during the Arise News interview that fare savings are already reaching passengers on some routes in Lagos, Abuja, Kaduna, Kano, Ebonyi and Maiduguri, although the reductions are not yet widespread enough.
- The government is also expanding the infrastructure needed to support the transition. The Midstream and Downstream Gas Infrastructure Fund is financing more than 100 gas projects, including 15 CNG mother stations and 86 daughter stations.
- It plans to add another 500 CNG refuelling stations to the 500 already ordered, bringing the planned nationwide network to 1,000 stations.
The government is targeting the conversion of one million commercial petrol vehicles to CNG by 2027. About 120,000 vehicles had been converted as of the latest data published on the PI-CNG&EV website, while the initiative has attracted more than $2.5 billion in investment.
