The Chairman of the Presidential Initiative on Compressed Natural Gas and Electric Vehicles (PI-CNG&EV), Ismael Ahmed, has called on the federal government to make it compulsory for commercial vehicles to abandon petrol and diesel in favour of compressed natural gas.
Speaking on Arise News TV, Ahmed said the programme has moved beyond proving that the technology works and now requires nationwide scale. He noted that Nigeria has roughly 12 million vehicles, with between 55% and 60% used commercially, making that segment central to any broad fuel transition.
"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 added that the country holds an estimated 200 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves and has the technology to compress the resource for transport use. According to him, fares have already fallen on some routes served by CNG and electric vehicles, although the savings have not reached passengers as widely as desired.
Lagos has adopted a similar approach in its regulated public transport system. From the beginning of 2026, the Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (LAMATA) no longer accepts new diesel buses from operators, requiring new entrants to run on CNG or electricity while existing diesel buses are progressively replaced.
LAMATA Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Engr. Mrs. Abimbola Akinajo, linked the policy to reducing transport emissions and managing operating costs. She 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. LAMATA had about 150 CNG buses before receiving 20 additional high-capacity buses under the Presidential Initiative, with some expected to serve the Ikorodu-TBS corridor.
Alternative fuels development consultant Omid Hamidkhani said a wider transition would require reliable gas supply, refuelling infrastructure, financing, regulation and safety systems. He argued that Nigeria's large gas reserves would matter little if the infrastructure needed to deliver fuel to vehicles remained inadequate.
