THE high cost of kerosene has been with us for a while and so have increasing dangers of this cost. Among them are the sale of adulterated kerosene by greedy merchants who exploit the gap in supply, and the devastation of the environment.

Equally not so new is government’s utter indifference to the plight of the masses of Nigeria who depend on kerosene for cooking. Nigerians who use kerosene have been on their own. They mourn relations who die from adulterated kerosene, treat their injured, and lament the deep holes the high costs of the product drill in their pockets.

Government does not care.

Under the nebulous policies of privatisation, diesel and kerosene were among concessions made to business people who supported government. The marketers of these products do not refine them, they just import and push the cost to consumers.

Diesel has been more manageable as the high consumers are industries. They too are sagging under the burdens of generating their own electricity from diesel. A huge part of the high cost of products and services is related to the cost of private generation of power with diesel.

Kerosene use is more wide spread. Most households in Nigeria use the product for cooking, as cost of cooking gas is exorbitant too. Sellers of the product exploit this market, particularly since government claims it has no business with the importation of kerosene, another way of saying the importers can sell at whatever price they want.

It is ironic that the product that is in mass use does not enjoy any form of intervention from government. The importers use this freedom to impose prices as they like. They have over the years benefitted from the shortage in supply of the product.

Little thought is given to the effect this could have on the forests, which we are losing to logging and desertification. As the prices soar, kerosene users resort to firewood and charcoal, both products that despoil the forests. All the talks about re-forestation, protecting the environment and stopping desert encroachment, are vaporising before our eyes.

Government’s indifference about the cost of kerosene has set back the gains in those directions by many years. Ignored cost of kerosene is a simple indication about how issues that affect ordinary people are neglected by the rich and powerful, who look after themselves.

At the end of the day, everyone suffers the consequences. The damaged environment does not recognise the rich or poor. A damaged environment damages everyone, often with the significant implications for all.

Some states like Bauchi banned the sell of charcoal years back to contain the felling of trees. Some others have forestation programmes to curb the menace of the desert. Yet none of these has been successful because as kerosene, the main fuel for cooking continues to be out of reach of its users, they resort to the forests for firewood and charcoal.

The suggestions that a low price of kerosene is to help the poor, narrow perspectives about how high cost of kerosene devastates to the environment. Whether we manufacture or import kerosene, what we should be thinking about is a price at which our forests will be safe.

We do not have all the time in the world to reach that decision.