Northern Nigeria’s Dependence on Fuelwood: Insights from Nationwide Cooking Fuel Distribution Data
Ali I. Naibbi, Richard G. Healey

Abstract
Maconachie et al. (2009) in their work “Descending the energy ladder? Oil price shocks and domestic fuel choices in Kano, Nigeria” show that cooking fuel consumption in Kano city (Northern Nigeria) is biased in favour of the traditional fuelwood (i.e. the northern population are descending the energy ladder, not ascending it, as might be expected). This finding prompted the present wider exploration of cooking fuel supply and consumption at the national scale, in order to understand the spatial patterns of fossil fuel distribution and consumption in the country, with a view to examining whether there are any spatial patterns of such inequalities amongst households across the 36 states of Nigeria (and Abuja the capital city). Spatial analysis of the distribution and consumption of cooking fuel was conducted using Geographical Information Systems (GIS). The results show that fossil fuel supply is precarious in the country. The majority of the northern states are deprived of sufficient fossil fuel, and this is closely correlated with their dependence on traditional fuels (fuelwood), leading to considerable pressure on the region’s scarce vegetation resources.

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