Olatunbosun Oyintiloye, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Osun, has appealed to President Bola Tinubu to urgently intervene in the high cost of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) in the country.

Mr Oyintiloye, while speaking with journalists on Sunday in Osogbo, said the cost of cooking gas was becoming unbearable for the masses.

He said that while the masses were struggling to look for what to eat, the means of cooking should not be made difficult for them.

The APC chieftain said although the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Gas), Ekperikpe Ekpo, on February 22, announced that the federal government had asked LPG producers to stop exporting the commodity, the decision was yet to yield positive results.

He said this might result from LPG producers secretly exporting the product or the ban has not been fully implemented.

Mr Oyintiloye, a former member of the defunct APC Presidential Campaign Council (PCC), noted that it was alarming that the cost of refilling a 12.5kg cylinder in many parts of the country now costs between N17,500 and N18,000.

The party chieftain said that due to the exorbitant prices, many LPG users who could not afford the price gradually shifted to solid fuels like charcoal and firewood.

Mr Oyintiloye said the shift to charcoal and firewood by the masses could lead to climate change and its adverse effects, such as deforestation, desertification and soil degradation that could lead to erosion.

“This will, in turn, pose a serious danger to the respiratory organ, fatigue, headaches, confusion, and dizziness to the human system due to inadequate oxygen delivery to the brain, thereby reducing the overall well-being of people.

“In an attempt to substitute clean cooking gas to firewood and charcoal by cutting down green trees, this will affect human survival because there will be no adequate oxygen in the blood system,” he said.

He urged the president to take drastic measures to crash the product’s price in the interest of the masses.

“The fuel subsidy removal is biting hard on the people, and the electricity supply is unstable.

“All relevant and critical stakeholders must join hands with the President to tackle the challenges in the gas industry,” he said.

Mr Oyintiloye, however, commended Mr Tinubu on his proactive steps in stabilising the naira against the United States dollar.

Mr Oyintiloye said that with patience and absolute support to the president, the economic challenges the country is going through will be a thing of the past.

(NAN)