Ten thousand. That is the number of families in Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory who just got a free LPG cylinder and a refill voucher. The math behind that number is simple: 10,000 fewer households cooking over firewood, charcoal, or kerosene. 10,000 fewer homes filling their kitchens with smoke.
Project Breathe Clean Air Abuja handed out the last of those cylinders Thursday at the Bwari Mini Stadium. The Federal Capital Territory Administration and IHS Nigeria split the work.
The FCTA brought the policy muscle. IHS brought the sponsorship, which started in November 2025. The numbers tell a grim story about what happens without this program.
Dr. Adedolapo Fasawe, the Mandate Secretary of the FCT Health Services and Environment Secretariat, laid it out. Respiratory tract infections among women were rising.
Respiratory allergies in children were climbing. The common denominator: hours of exposure to smoke from traditional cooking fuels. Mothers cooking over open fires.
Toddlers breathing in the fumes. Day after day. That is the baseline the project is trying to change.
The distribution covered 18 communities across all six Area Councils of the FCT. That means every corner of the territory got some of the cylinders.
Not just the wealthy districts. Not just the areas close to the government center. 18 communities, six councils, 10,000 families. Mariya Mahmud, the Minister of State for the FCT, spoke at the ceremony through her representative, Maijida Kuku.
She said the project was built to cut the number of respiratory diseases caused by indoor air pollution. Women and children carry the heaviest burden, she noted.
That is not a guess. That is epidemiology. Women do most of the cooking in Nigerian households.
Children stay close to their mothers. Both groups breathe the smoke directly. Wider LPG use, Mahmud added, would improve public health, protect the environment, and help with climate change.
Three benefits from one swap. Replace a smoky fire with a clean gas flame.
The lungs get cleaner. The trees stay standing. The carbon stays in the ground.
The program did not stop at handing out hardware. Sustainability teams from the FCTA and IHS Nigeria went into the communities.
They visited community leaders. They taught safe gas use. A cylinder full of LPG is a tool.
Used wrong, it is a danger. The training was part of the package. 10,000 families. That is a start.
That is not the whole territory. But it is 10,000 families who will not be breathing smoke tonight.
It is 10,000 kitchens that will burn cleaner. It is 10,000 children who will have one fewer reason to develop a respiratory allergy. The ceremony at Bwari Mini Stadium was the wrap-up, not the beginning.
The work started months ago, in November 2025. The cylinders moved out gradually.
The refill vouchers went with them. Thursday was the public acknowledgment that the first phase was done. For the families involved, the change is concrete.
No more chopping firewood. No more buying charcoal. No more kerosene stoves that smoke up the room.
A gas cylinder. A clean blue flame.
A kitchen that does not hurt to stand in. That is what 10,000 cylinders add up to.
