After up to 11 months of its establishment by President Bola Tinubu, the Presidential Compressed Natural Gas Initiative (PCNGI) has announced partnerships that let commercial transport employees working under a recognised union convert their petrol or diesel-powered vehicles to now run on gas.

Bringing this to fruition had been in the works ever since the PCNGI received executive approval to kick off on 18 August 2023.

The Presidential Compressed Natural Gas Initiative (PCNGI) officially kicked off the conversion process with the help of five key partners: Nipco, ABG, NASENI Portland, FIX it 45, and NITT. The official start of vehicle conversions in key locations across Abuja has begun pic.twitter.com/Sd1h3bv5Q8

— PCNGI (@PCNGInitiative) July 12, 2024

Following the removal of the petrol subsidy three months before this, the initiative which is headed by Programme Director and Chief Executive Michael Oluwagbemi, planned to launch free conversion workshops all over Nigeria so that the citizens will be enabled to access cheaper fuel, hence the reduction in transportation cost starting from the Federal Capital Territory.

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Commercial vehicle owners find converting their petrol engines to use compressed natural gas quite limiting because they have to fund the process with as much as ₦600,000 at these challenging economic times. With partners such as Nipco, ABG, NASENI Portland, FIX it 45, and NITT coming to eight states of the federation capturing Akwa Ibom, Rivers, Kogi, Delta, Oyo, F.C.T, Edo and Lagos, the enormous burden might disappear in an instant.

Today we’ve just signed with five partners with us here in the Federal Capital Territory that are participating in the Conversion Incentive Programme, says Chief Executive Oluwagbemi after agreeing with a few stakeholders working to scale up the scheme.

The programme is tackling the barrier to Nigerian commercial transport operators to convert from PMS (petrol) to gas. Most of them have said that the cost of conversion is expensive, and so what we are doing here today is basically to respond to that concern.

What is the government doing about it? First and foremost, for commercial operators that are unionised, I’m talking about the members of RTEAN, NARTO, and NURTW; through their unions, they can benefit 100 per cent discount. That is, they will get the kits for free and installation will also be done for them for free.

So far, a total of 123 certified conversion workshops have been identified by the Presidential Compressed Natural Gas Initiative but only five centres out of these were present at the signing of the treaties that give backing to serve the beneficiaries.

List of CNG Conversion Centres pic.twitter.com/uXshOG8Ua3

— State House Abuja, Nigeria (@asovilladigital) July 11, 2024

The goal of the PCNGI is to drastically reduce the cost of transportation, which in over a year had reached levels that no Nigerian was used to before President Bola Tinubu assumed office. Stopping PMS subsidy payments and also floating the Naira meant that the price of mobility and food went out of hand since both are directly connected.

Middle-class workers who choose not to own or use private vehicles get to be the indirect beneficiaries of the conversions being rolled out. They are mostly the main audience patronising ride-sharing services who weren’t left out of the steep energy costs situation currently going on in the country.

So if you are a vehicle rider [who] is operating under Uber, Bolt, Lag-Ride, Move, etc., you will be able to also benefit from this programme. Today we have Bolt here with us that is signing and we hope to add the others very soon. Lag-Ride has already signed up and we are going to send the agreement next week.

They will be able to benefit from a 50 per cent write-off on the equipment and then they will get installation for free. So that means the government will pay for these conversion workshops to install the equipment you will get at 50 per cent off.

Exactly 20,000 conversion kits will power the exercise, Mr Michael Oluwagbemi confirmed on Thursday, 11 July, and the ride-sharing services won’t have the burden of paying off the discount in one go.

What the federal government expects however is that all the beneficiaries should ensure that they pass on the advantages to their clients; meaning Nigerians patronising their transport business ought to get the value.

Together with a 150-day halting of duties paid to import critical food like husked brown rice and maize, officials hope they would have started to make existence easier for over 200 million citizens who are living under a huge strain like never seen before.