Mrs. Moji Adeleke, of No. 20 Kosikor Street, Ikeja, rarely cooks with kerosene. She cooks with gas cooker and has been doing that for as long as she can remember. She has a big, single kerosene stove and even a Thermocool two burner electric stove which are all part of wedding gifts she received.
Precisely, two Sundays ago, after her three-week trip to Malawi, she was in her kitchen preparing Sunday lunch for her young family when all of a sudden, she realised there was no light from her gas burners.
Not alarmed, she switched over to the second 12.5kg gas cylinder stationed around for crisis like this. To her dismay, she realised it was empty. It had never happened before. She always made sure to refill in order to avoid being stranded in the middle of cooking something. She remembered that before travelling, she had reminded her husband to refill the cylinder, but probably he might have forgotten or even remembered but had put it forward. “Procrastination!’’ she sighed aloud.
Now thoroughly flustered and exasperated, she wondered where she can buy gas on a Sunday afternoon. Moreover, everybody in the house, including her, were quite hungry after a lengthy Sunday service. None of the gas refill plants around opens on Sundays.
That was when Funmi, her house help, suggested using the kerosene stove. The electric burner was out of it as there was no electricity. Thrusting N500 into Funmi’s hand, she urged her to hurry and buy the kerosene from any of the shops around. “At least kerosene is sold almost everywhere,” she reasoned out aloud.
With the N500, Funmi rushed out and within minutes, she was back with the product, informing her mistress that she paid N400 for the two litres of kerosene. Pronto, the kerosene was poured into the stove and the cooking was completed.
That afternoon, Moji Adeleke cooked white rice, plain beans, fried plantain, tomato stew and vegetable. In the evening for dinner, she made soup, prepared semovita, cooked spaghetti and stew.
In the morning, she still used the kerosene stove to make breakfast and lunch the kids took to school. She planned to buy gas the next day after she must have returned from work. “At least, I will still manage with this kerosene stove till I make out time tomorrow to visit the gas plant,” she thought.
However, on getting home that day, being the second day of cooking with the stove, to her surprise she realised that the N400 worth of kerosene she bought had finished. When she saw that the stove was not emitting strong flames of fire, she opened the kerosene compartment and was aghast to find that it was almost empty.
Perplexed, she closed the compartment. At this rate, she pondered, a small family like hers that does not cook much will be spending about N12,000 on kerosene monthly while what she spends on 12.5kg gas that lasts her family for about six weeks was N3,800.
Most of the people The Nation spoke to are people who have experienced cooking with gas stoves and kerosene stoves. Virtually all of them admitted that cooking with gas is cheaper than kerosene. However, a majority of them pointed out that at the beginning, cooking with gas cooker will be far more expensive than cooking with a kerosene stove.
“To start with,” pointed out Amarachi Eze, “one will have to buy a cylinder and gas cooker. The cheapest cylinder is the 3kg which sells for between N5,000-N6,000 while the burner is about N1,500. To refill it with gas costs about N1,000-N2,000, while one can buy a small cooking stove with N1,000 and get kerosene of N200 to cook.”
Mrs. Ejike Udeze, concurring with Amarachi, said that apart from the initial cost of acquiring gas cooker and cylinder that cooking with gas is by all means cheaper and better than cooking with kerosene stove. “Cooking gas of N2,000 lasts me and my family for up to one month and we cook every day.”
“Before, I thought that cooking with kerosene was cheaper. I thought that gas was exclusively for the rich till my neighbour convinced me to buy gas. Now I know that it’s the rich that use kerosene,” enthused a woman simply called Alhaja.
“I don’t know. Kerosene used to be cheaper than gas but now the reverse is the case. Kerosene burns so fast now. A gallon of kerosene which costs about N1,500 does not even last up to two weeks in my house. I have resorted to charcoal. It is far cheaper. It does not burn as fast as kerosene or even gas and does not smoke,” explained Miss Rukayat Buhari.
However, while admitting that cooking with gas is cheaper, Adaobi Okeke said she was more bothered about the danger it poses. “Cooking with a kerosene stove is safer than cooking with gas but I hate the smell of kerosene and smoke from the stove.”
Further investigations by The Nation revealed that currently a 12.5kg aluminium gas cylinder costs about N9,000-N10,000 while the plastic of the same size sell for about N12,000. Popular brands like Total may cost more.
Most two gas burners, especially the ones referred to as industrial burners, sell between N18,000-N20,000, however known brands cost higher. We would have loved to continue with this story but due to space constraint we cannot go further.
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