As more and more poor quality petroleum products get rejected from around the world, including a majority of African nations, the more and more they flood the Nigerian fuel market, making Nigeria a homeward front for dirty fuels. This is because of a lack of effort from the Nigerian government not even attempting regulations for cleaner fuel as well as a petroleum importing companies, like the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, (N.N.P.C.), have yet to make any change in refining the dirty fuel. The main problem with the major use of the dirty fuel is that the unclean petroleum contains high amounts of sulfur which is more toxic to humans, wildlife, and the environment. The high sulfur petroleum also degrades the machines that use it. The Refinery and Health Study for Sub-Saharan said that investing about 6 billion dollars into refining the current dirty fuel into cleaner fuel will result in a 43 billion dollar saving for health for African nations for over the next 10 years. The N.N.P.C. is said to make a more costly process to create a cleaner fuel by October 1, 2019. However for the several N.N.P.C. refineries spread are projected to keep dishing the same high sulfur petroleum into the market until 2021. The Nigerian Federal Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Trade and Investment Organization, the United Nations along with stock holders in the refining companies have taken an interest in Africa’s dirty fuel issue but have only implemented any actions against the issue. African countries like Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Ghana, and Cote d’Ivoire have agreed to cut the usage of the high sulfur petroleum in order to stop the harmful pollutant from causing any further damage to the African people as well as the environment, however this was stated back in December of 2016 and nothing has been done about the dirty fuel epidemic.
My opinion on the this matter of the dirty fuel problem that is plaguing Nigeria and other African countries is that they really should implement some sort of regulation on how much sulfur can be in the petroleum, they should really cut that amount of sulfur in the petroleum by a decent amount, because the amount that is legal currently is corroding the machines that the Nigerians use and is causing major health effects the people around it, as well as polluting the environment at a faster rate. I do have an understanding of why the refining companies have not yet produced any clean petroleum and that is because it might be too expensive for them do produce, and for a third world country that is understandable. However there is a solution to this matter and that is to subsidize the refineries for producing cleaner petroleum, so that it’s less cost heavy on the refinery and in doing so causes the refineries to actually produce cleaner fuel rather than saying they will, like they have been for the past 2 years. Also if the Nigerian government is not willing to do such do to some financial matters than I believe the United Nations should step in and fund the subsidization rather than merely reporting on this topic which is rather important for the health of Nigerian and African citizens.