By Funmi Olasupo

ABUJA – The Minister of women Affairs and Social Development, Senator Aisha Jummai Alhassan has called on the Ministry of Petroleum Resources to accelerate plans to stop gas flaring so it could be conserved for domestic use. The women minister lamented that statistics provided by donor parties have shown that about 95,300 women die annually in Nigeria from smoke alone, while others suffer various health complications.

Speaking during a one day consultative forum on gender issues in renewable energy management and options, Senator Aisha Alhassan noted that energy professionals should embrace gender analysis as a tool to gain understanding of energy needs of the entire population. “Gender analysis is not about looking at women alone, nor is it about complaining about what women are suffering compared to men, but rather gender is about reaching a better understanding of how communities work”.

According to her while trying to meet the needs of women inappropriate interventions are made because of false assumptions saying, “analysis of women’s workloads often reveals quite different priorities such as health issues associated with cooking methods and loss of Economic production time”.

Calling for active involvement of women in decision making and policy designs, the women minister said that women have a lot of offer these professionals by way of experience. The representative of the minister of petroleum, Mr Ademiran Edward Adetunde said that Gas Flaring is critical to Nigeria”s energy option because it could be used for domestic use.

Earlier the Executive Director of International Centre for Energy, Environment and Development, Mr. Ewah Otu Eleri revealed that only 5% of Nigerian household use gas to cook, while 25% use kerosene and the rest of the 70% use firewood.

Highest killer of women

He said, “Smoke is the highest killer of women, but unfortunately no one stands and advocate for these rural women, their trials are unreported. “Presently Nigeria is in a energy crisis, no woman should die cooking, but with only 700 naira this calamity can be avoided” “We are ready to collaborate with federal government to save the lives of women.

Also, the Director, Women Environment Programme, WEP, Priscilla Achakpa pointed out that if government was serious about improving the lives of women then it must increase the budgetary allocation. She maintained that for a country like Nigerian to have such a small budget for the ministry of women affairs would not do.