Senate President Bukola Saraki says 65,000 Nigerians die yearly in the country due to exposure to household pollution. Saraki said this on Tuesday at the 2017 Clean Cooking Forum, vowing to ensure bills for the use of clean stoves are passed.
"Globally, there are over 4 million deaths every year due to household air pollution and 24 per cent of global black carbon emissions come from cooking smoke,” Saraki, who was represented by Senator Audu Ibrahim, said.
"In Nigeria, household air pollution is the third most significant risk factor for health after malaria and HIV/Aids, killing almost 65,000 people every year – more than half of whom are children.
"This form of biomass energy use for cooking no doubt justifies the development of a sustainable clean cook stove program in Nigeria.”The Senate president also said, “Nigerians consume between 1.9kg to 4kg/day/capital of firewood depending on household size. When applied to the country’s population currently put at about 170 million people, the country’s consumes more than 500 million kilograms of firewood daily.
"This is indeed enormous for the forest to bear. Indoor pollution, black carbon emission, tree felling and other associated livelihood trade-offs from the use of traditional cooking methods are issues that affects urban and rural populations particularly that of women and children.”