Why charcoal business is booming in Kano

Due to the rising cost of kerosene and cooking gas, many households in Kano state who previously relied on it for cooking have resorted to the use of charcoal, an ancient source of cooking energy from time immemorial, to meet their needs. Isah Sagiru of Unguwar Jakada Dorayi Babba in the state metropolis said the hike in the price […]

Due to the rising cost of kerosene and cooking gas, many households in Kano state who previously relied on it for cooking have resorted to the use of charcoal, an ancient source of cooking energy from time immemorial, to meet their needs.

Isah Sagiru of Unguwar Jakada Dorayi Babba in the state metropolis said the hike in the price of kerosene was the reason for his patronage of charcoal traders. Sagiru, who bought one silo of the product, said “charcoal is the cheapest substitute I have for all
cooking needs of my house.”

In January and early February this year, kerosene price had skyrocketed beyond financial ability of many households in the state.

A liter of the product then sold at N350 and above. At the moment, filling stations in the city sell the liter of the product between N190 and N200.

“Though the price of kerosene is coming down slowly, I have already changed to charcoal,” said another resident Nasiru Tafarki who bought only 2 liters of kerosene at a filling station along Gwarzo Road.

Tafarki said he bought the 2 liters “in case of urgent need to prepare children for school. Apart from that, I cannot afford kerosene for everyday cooking in my house.”

Apart from the kerosene, refilling 5kg of cooking gas now cost N1800 in the city, as against 1,500 previously.

Refilling 12kg has risen from N3, 000 to a minimum of N4, 300 and 25kg rose to N8, 600 as against N5, 400. A report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), had indicated that Kano residents, alongside those in Abuja and Oyo state, paid the highest average price for the refilling of a 5kg cylinder for liquefied petroleum gas (cooking gas) in January, 2017.

The NBS, in the report titled ‘Liquefied Petroleum Gas Price Watch, which was widely published by newspapers in the country, said in January, Abuja residents paid N2,800.00 for the refilling of a 5kg cylinder of cooking gas, while residents of Kano and Oyo paid
N2,750.00 and N2,700.00, respectively.

Shaaibu Kabiru, one of the dealers of the charcoal, said a silo of the charcoal sold at N1, 500 and they usually supply it from Niger state, though other states like Kogi, Kwara, Bauchi and Kaduna also produce the charcoal.

He said most traders preferred Niger state’s variety of charcoal “because of its big size and good quality”.

When a silo is divided into two, the first half is sold at N800 while the other half, which constitutes the smaller sizes, is packaged in nylons for N100 and N50 depending on the size.

“I was sent to buy diddiga (smaller particles of the charcoal) by my mother,” said Musbahu Jafar, a small boy of about 5 years. There is as little as N20 diddiga for households that cannot afford the N100 or N50 package.

Mohammed Habeeb another dealer of the charcoal said residents were their major customers in the city apart from retailers who supply the charcoal to inner parts of the metropolis.

Others include traders who engage in cooking and frying business on the streets and poultry farmers.

Kabiru Ishaq is the Deputy Chairman, Karamci ‘Yan Gawayi Karshen Waya Association, one of the major hubs of selling charcoal in the state.

Ishaq, who has been in the business for five years, said they were grateful that the business was growing by the day.

“Our elders, who started the business, used to display only a silo or two here. But as you can see, this place has changed to one of the most important centers for selling charcoal in the state.”

The peak period of the charcoal business is during harmattan and rainy season, but Ishaq said customers also demand for charcoal during other seasons because of economic hardship and high cost of kerosene in the country.

“Some women also prefer the charcoal instead of fuel wood which produce smoke and make cooking pots dirty,” he said adding that, “all these help in making the business afloat at the moment.”

The charcoal business has affected life in many ways in the city as a plastic and kerosene stove retailer Abubakar Abdullahi narrated.

He said since the abrupt change of many residents to the charcoal, he hardly sold more than one kerosene stove in a month.

Professor Ibrahim Baba Yakubu of the Department of Environmental Sciences, Bayero University Kano said the charcoal business had serious negative implications to the environment.

He said: “The process of getting the charcoal is through destroying live trees because it requires big stem not branches or dead trees as the case is with fuel wood. If you need good quality charcoal, you need a stem and for that reason it is being produced under low oxygen convulsion; producing it in the open can only yield ashes not charcoal.”

He said the negative consequences of producing charcoal were more than that of fuel wood because it destroyed eco system in forests and fresh trees were needed not dead ones to produce the charcoal.

“It is poverty that leads our people into anything, but the process of getting the charcoal has serious negative consequence to the environment.”

Professor Yakubu said government had to come in through subsidizing initial investment of acquiring cooking equipment to workers at lower cadre and to also subsidize cooking gas and kerosene.

“By the time the government subsidized the cooking gas and kerosene that will reduce pressure on the charcoal and fuel wood and subsequently save our forests and the environment,” he said.

In a 2013 study on assessing gaseous pollutants and air quality in some areas of Kano metropolis, in Ecology and the Environment, a book published by Wessex Institute of Technology, Garba and Yunusa recommended tree planting and avoiding deforestation.

They said trees and plants serve as natural process of air purification and photosynthesis.

Like any other trade, the charcoal business in Kano is not without challenges. High cost of nylons used in packaging the charcoal is one of the problems worrying the traders. 

“And when the business hit the highest point,” Ishaq said, “we don’t get good quality charcoal as we are getting now.”