By Joyce Remi-Babayeju
The Minister of Women Affairs, Imaani Suleiman-Ibrahim has raised that at least 80% of women die prematurely from toxic smoke from firewood while trying to preparing meals.
Speaking on Wednesday in Abuja at the first Energy stakeholders partnership advancement meeting, with the theme: Ending Energy Poverty Stakeholder Engagement”, the minister said, “Every year, over 80,000 Nigerian women die prematurely from the toxic smoke of firewood and traditional cooking stoves.”
Suleiman-Ibrahim lamented that this translates that “Eighty thousand lives are cut short while simply trying to prepare a meal. These women are not statistics. They are mothers.”
The minister stressed the urgency for the country to embrace a clean energy compliance to prevent these avoidable and unjust deaths of women and girls, who are also nation-builders.
The minister further emphasized that over 85 million Nigerians do not have access to electricity.
” Today, over 85 million Nigerians, 43% of our population, still live without access to electricity. Most of them are women and children in rural communities, where darkness isn’t just about the absence of light, it’s about the absence of opportunity, dignity, safety, and hope. That, too, must change”, she decried.
She noted that the stakeholders meeting would actualize plans for ending energy poverty for Nigerian women by reaching all women across the 774 Local Government Areas in the country.
According to the minister, the Ministry seeks achieve, “Through a data-driven, woman-focused, women-powered revolution we will soon unveil the first of its kind, clean energy transformation designed by women, for women, and life-changing clean energy solutions.
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Suleiman-Ibrahim explained that the initiative will provide energy access through solar home systems, clean cooking technologies, solar water pumps, e-mobility tools, and other productive-use appliances for women in every corner of this nation.
She noted that the clean energy initiative is a statement of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda is pooling resources to bring the dividends of democracy to Nigerian Women.
Daybreak reports the clean energy initiative led by the ministry of Women Affairs is expected to equip women with modern clean cooking technologies and to train them as energy entrepreneurs and end distributors.
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