HOUSEHOLD COPING STRATEGIES FOR DOMESTIC ENERGY PRICE CHANGES IN NORTHEASTERN NIGERIA

In Nigeria, high cost of Domestic Energy (DE) has put untold hardship on households. Coping strategy is therefore imperative to meet household domestic cooking and heating needs. Investigating evolving strategies would better inform DE experts and policy makers. This study was therefore designed to investigate strategies devised by households in Northeastern Nigeria for coping with the escalating prices of DE. The domestic energy types considered in the study include Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), kerosene, electricity, coal, solar energy, animal dung, agricultural residues and wood energy. Other potential energy sources in Nigeria include volcanic and refuse fuel, tidal and wind energy and geothermal, which are yet to be exploited. Borno, Gombe and Taraba states were selected for the study through stratified random sampling that gave due cognisance to representative vegetation zone of Northeastern Nigeria. Twenty percent of the total number of Local Government Areas (LGAs) in Borno (27), Gombe (11) and Taraba (16) states respectively were randomly selected comprising urban, semi-urban and rural LGAs. Two wards were selected from each LGA making a total of 20 wards for the study. Four sets of questionnaire were administered, each on 25 household heads, six DE marketers, two heads of government forestry agencies and three community leaders in each ward. Information elicited focussed on DE price changes, factors determining choice of DE and coping strategies evolved by households between 2006 and 2007. Descriptive statistics, Chi-Square, Logistic regression and correlation tests were used to analyse the data at p≤0.05. Eighty two percent of the household heads were male, 81.7% were married, and 33.2% had secondary school education while 54.2% were farmers. The mean age of household heads was 42.0 ± 3.0 years while the mean monthly income was ₦11,228 ± 2,345:00. Fuelwood, (90.0%), kerosene, (74.4%), charcoal, (83.2%), electricity (49.2%) and, cooking gas (13.6%) were DE severally identifiable by community leaders.