Fed Govt hands over 15 CNG-powered buses to Ekiti

• Launches seven conversion centres
• Oyebanji urges drivers to embrace initiatives
• Pledges to convert government vehicles to CNG

The Federal Government has handed over 15 Compressed Natural Gas (CNG)-powered buses and kits to the Ekiti State government, even as it launched seven conversion centres in the state.

Project Director/Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Presidential Compressed Gas Initiatives, Michael Oluwagbemi, who handed over the CNG-powered buses, at the weekend, in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital, noted that the buses would reduce the cost of transportation in the state.

According to Oluwagbemi, the target is to allow one million drivers to convert to CNG for free by 2027, saying: “Today, we will be handing over some of these kits and we will be signing for seven of these centres that will be doing the conversion in Ekiti State.”

In his remarks, Ekiti State Governor, Biodun Oyebanji, urged commercial drivers and tricycle riders in the state to consider converting their vehicles and tricycles to CNG or adopting them all together.

Oyebanji, who was represented by the Commissioner for Infrastructure and Public Utilities, Prof. Mobolaji Aluko, said that the CNG initiatives would not succeed unless four things occurred, namely, conversion centres must exist, vehicles must be available to be converted, there must be refuelling centres and gas must be available..

“This is why we welcome the seven conversion centres that have been unveiled today. It will offer employment for our youths as 25 of our indigenes had been trained for one week at a centre in Ado-Ekiti,” he said.

The governor promised that many government vehicles would be converted as quickly as possible to contribute to the initiative, saying: “We have identified such vehicles, including my own. I will undergo conversion in no time.”

He, however, named the new mass transit system as ‘Ile Iyi mass transit scheme,’ warning that past failures associated with the mass transit scheme must not reoccur.