Oando Plc has partnered with the Lagos State Government to deploy 5,000 electricity buses for public transportation.
This was disclosed by the Group Chief Executive Officer, Wale Tinubu, in an interview with CNBC Africa at the just concluded World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
According to him, the decision to invest in electric vehicles was part of the company’s commitment to push for the use of clean energy in Africa’s largest economy.
He, however, makes a case for a ‘just transition’ over decarbonisation in Africa as the continent “is actually a victim of global warming,” bearing the brunt of climate change while contributing only about 3% of global emissions.
He further stated that Africa cannot decarbonise or abandon its large deposits of fossil fuels for clean energy sources while the majority of its citizens wallow in energy poverty.
“The arguments for decarbonisation are as important as the arguments for a just transition, and that transition has to recognize the fact that Africa has 45% of the people who have no access to electricity or energy products so our first step really must be to use what we need, which means that we need to use our gas as part of the energy mix to service the needs of our continent and that we need to do so as a transitional fuel whilst we work with an energy mix”
He noted that Oando, being a major player in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry is deploying EVs as a “carbon capture technique” to contribute to the global decarbonisation campaign.
“For every modicum of carbon we put into the economy, into the world and the environment, we are also taking that out by ensuring that we have carbon capture techniques as well as ensuring that our clean energy offering to as part of our products and services is high so we’re focusing a lot on e-vehicles,” he explained.
He disclosed that the company will deploy 5,000 electric buses to Lagos in its contribution to helping Nigeria transition its public transport system from combustion engines to electric vehicles.
“We are using gas as a transitional fuel to create electricity to generate the power to power buses, transport is 10% of global emissions so if we tackle public transport we would be able to reduce emissions by 5% almost immediately and the first step we’re doing now is also working on a public system of being able to transit the bus system in Nigeria from diesel or petrol to electric vehicles starting with a project which we’re working on with the Lagos state government as a pilot case where we expect to see up to 5,000 buses, e-buses being deployed in our streets.”
