By Ismaeel Ahmed
The conversation about Compressed Natural Gas is not new in Nigeria. For years, governments and private operators explored its potential. We knew the technology, possessed the gas and understood that it offered a cheaper and cleaner alternative to petrol and diesel.
What was missing was the political will to make CNG a serious national priority.
That changed with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Following the removal of petrol subsidy in 2023, the President could have treated rising transportation costs as a problem requiring temporary relief. Instead, he confronted a deeper contradiction: a country rich in gas remained overwhelmingly dependent on petrol and diesel to move its people and goods.
The President gave CNG what it had lacked: presidential backing, national urgency and clear policy direction. Nigeria needed a cheaper and more sustainable energy option for transportation, one that would make better use of resources we already possess, reduce exposure to petrol prices and create genuine choice.
CNG therefore became more than a response to subsidy removal. It became a national economic proposition.
The Presidential Initiative on Compressed Natural Gas and Electric Vehicles (PiCNG & EV) was established to turn that proposition into a functioning market. Our role is not simply to convert vehicles or distribute assets. It is to build and coordinate an industry around alternative energy for mobility, bringing together infrastructure, vehicles, investors, financiers, technicians, operators and consumers.
Building that industry requires both sides of the market to develop together. Investors need confidence that customers will come, while customers need confidence that fuel will be available.
Supply needs demand. Demand needs supply.
That is the space PiCNG & EV occupies: connecting the two.
We stimulate demand so that investment makes sense, while working with the market to expand supply so that growing demand can be served. Government had to provide the initial push through conversions, kits, technician training, vehicles and infrastructure. But the purpose was never for government to become the CNG industry. The purpose was to create one.
That industry is now taking shape. More than 120,000 vehicles have been converted to CNG, with over 400 certified conversion centres, more than 90 CNG refuelling stations and around 180 stations in different stages of development across the country. Commercial operators are converting because the savings make economic sense, while private capital is increasingly building the infrastructure to serve them.
PiCNG & EV has helped catalyse approximately $2.5 billion in private-sector investment, alongside about ₦250 billion in public-sector funding and commitments, and counting. Financial institutions are also entering the market. In April, we launched Buy Now, Pay Small Small with Moniepoint, CREDICORP and other partners, enabling eligible vehicle owners to convert without paying the full cost upfront.
When an operator converts because the economics work, a bank finances him because it sees a viable customer and an investor builds a station because demand is growing, you are building a market.
CNG is working. Adoption is real, the savings are real and the industry around it is real. The challenge now is scale: making it work at the size of Nigeria.
That means confronting the questions Nigerians are asking: Where are the stations? Why are there queues? Why is conversion still expensive? If CNG is cheaper, why have fares not fallen everywhere?
These questions identify the work ahead.
Adoption is growing faster than dispensing capacity in some locations. Queues demonstrate demand, but a cheaper fuel that takes hours to obtain is not sufficiently available. Our immediate priority is therefore availability: working with private investors and other partners to accelerate mother and daughter stations across cities and major transportation corridors, alongside mobile refuelling solutions where appropriate.
Conversion also has a real cost. Kits, cylinders, installation and safety requirements cannot be ignored. This is why we are expanding financing, encouraging competition and developing local capacity so that the barrier to entry continues to fall without compromising safety.
Now comes the most consequential phase: ensuring that Nigerians feel the benefits faster and more directly.
The President has renewed that directive, while governors across the federation have committed to working with the Federal Government, private sector, transport operators and other stakeholders to deepen adoption.
On 10 September, PiCNG & EV brought together State Commissioners responsible for Transport, Energy and Environment to begin translating this national ambition into coordinated action at state level. Transport is experienced locally. States understand their routes, operators, urban centres and commercial corridors. Our role is to connect those realities with federal policy, infrastructure, financing and private investment.
But one person must remain at the centre of all this: the passenger.
A driver who reduces his fuel bill has benefited. So has an investor who builds a viable station and a technician who earns a livelihood. But if the passenger continues to pay the same fare, our work is incomplete.
Getting the savings to the passenger must therefore be deliberate. Where government supports transport operators through subsidised conversions, vehicles, financing or infrastructure, that support should increasingly carry clear commitments to pass a reasonable share of the savings to passengers. We will work with states, transport associations and operators to identify participating routes, establish the economics before and after conversion and track whether cheaper energy is translating into cheaper fares.
At the same time, the market itself must do part of the work. As more operators convert and more CNG and electric vehicles compete for passengers, those with lower energy costs should be able to charge less while remaining commercially viable. Our job is not to regulate fares, but to help create the conditions in which cheaper energy produces lower operating costs, competition and, ultimately, cheaper mobility.
This is why we cannot measure ourselves only by vehicles converted, stations commissioned, investment attracted or technicians trained. These are important indicators of an industry being built, but they are not the final measure of success.
The passenger is the end.
Our Three A’s remain Availability, Affordability and Acceptability. But Nigerians can judge us more simply: Can they find it? Can they afford it? Can they feel it?
Nigeria has lived too long with the contradiction of being energy-rich while its people struggle with the cost of energy. President Tinubu has given us an opportunity to change that story by putting political will behind resources we already possess and building an industry around them.
At PiCNG & EV, our job is to build the bridge between that vision and the Nigerian on the road.
When a passenger steps into a bus and discovers that the journey costs less because it runs on cheaper energy, we will know that the industry we are building has reached the person for whom it was built.
That is the destination. That is what success looks like.
By Ismaeel Ahmed, OON
Executive Chairman, PiCNG & EV
