In Nigeria, whether a family has electricity and what it cooks with depends heavily on where it lives. The 2025 survey data on household characteristics, which covers 20,312 households and 104,538 people, shows two deep divides: one between urban and rural areas, and another between the households that cook with clean fuels and the large majority that still cook over smoke.

Electricity: more than half connected, but unevenly

According to the survey, 57.1 percent of Nigerian households have electricity, which leaves 42.9 percent without. Measured by people rather than households, the figure drops to 52.8 percent. The gap exists because rural households, which are less likely to be connected, tend to be larger.

The urban and rural split is stark:

	Urban	Rural	Total
Households with electricity	80.5%	31.2%	57.1%
Population with electricity	78.2%	29.9%	52.8%

About four in five urban households have electricity, but fewer than one in three rural households do. That is a difference of roughly 49 percentage points. In rural Nigeria, close to 69 percent of households, and more than 70 percent of rural residents, live without it.

Cooking: most households still rely on polluting fuels

The cooking data tells a harder story. Only 35.7 percent of households use clean fuels and technologies as their main cooking method, and among individuals the share is just 26.8 percent. The remaining 63.5 percent of households (73.0 percent of the population) rely on other fuels and technologies, mostly solid fuels such as wood and charcoal.

The urban-rural gap

Clean cooking follows the same geography as electricity, and the gap is just as wide. In urban households, 58.6 percent use clean fuels and technologies as their main method. In rural households the figure is 10.4 percent, which means urban households are more than five times as likely to cook cleanly. Looking at people rather than households, 48.5 percent of the urban population lives in a clean-cooking home against only 7.2 percent of the rural population.

LPG leads the clean options

Among clean technologies, one dominates. LPG, or cooking gas, is the main cooking technology in 32.2 percent of households overall. In urban areas it reaches 53.1 percent, while in rural areas it stands at 9.1 percent. Nearly all the clean cooking in the country is therefore LPG cooking.

Other clean options barely register:

• Piped natural gas stoves: 1.8 percent of households (2.8 percent urban, 0.7 percent rural)
• Biogas stoves: 1.0 percent of households
• Electric stoves: 0.7 percent of households
• Solar cookers: effectively zero

The electric stove figure is notable. Even in urban areas, where 80.5 percent of households have electricity, only 1.1 percent mainly cook with an electric stove. Having a connection does not mean households can rely on it, or afford it, for cooking.

The three-stone fire and the wood problem

The most common cooking method in Nigeria is not a modern stove at all. The three-stone stove or open fire is the main technology in 46.4 percent of households, rising to 71.8 percent in rural areas. Another 12.3 percent use a traditional solid fuel stove, and 3.8 percent use a manufactured solid fuel stove.

The fuel data confirms this. Solid fuels are the main cooking fuel for 62.2 percent of households and 72.0 percent of the population. Among them, wood is the main fuel for 49.0 percent of households, and in rural areas it is the main fuel for 77.0 percent. Charcoal is used by 11.0 percent of households, and interestingly it is more of an urban fuel (14.9 percent) than a rural one (6.6 percent), probably because it is bought rather than gathered.

Other solid fuels such as straw, shrubs and grass (1.4 percent), agricultural crop residue (0.6 percent), animal dung and garbage each account for very small shares. Liquid fuels play a minor role too: kerosene is the main fuel for 1.1 percent of households, and gasoline or diesel for 0.1 percent. Less than one percent of households report cooking no food at all.

Why this matters

The findings carry consequences beyond statistics.

Health. Cooking over open fires and simple solid fuel stoves produces household smoke, which is linked to respiratory illness. Because people in rural households are far more exposed, and because women and children typically spend the most time near the cooking area, the burden is unequal.

Time and labor. Where wood is the main fuel, in 77.0 percent of rural households, collecting it takes time that could go to schooling, work or rest.

Environment. Heavy dependence on wood puts pressure on forests and vegetation, and charcoal demand in cities adds to it.

Development. Electricity underpins lighting, refrigeration, phone charging and small businesses. With roughly seven in ten rural households unconnected, rural economic opportunity is held back at the base.

What the numbers suggest

The data points to a clear priority: rural areas. Urban Nigeria is already far ahead on both measures, so national averages are pulled up by cities while the countryside lags. Policies that aim only at the national figure risk missing the households with the greatest need.

Several directions follow from the numbers. Extending grid and off-grid electricity to rural communities would address the 68.8 percent of rural households without power. Making LPG cheaper and easier to access in rural areas, through smaller cylinders, refill points and financing, would build on the one clean technology that already has traction. Promoting improved cookstoves could help households that will continue to use solid fuels in the near term. And because piped gas, biogas and electric cooking are barely present, they represent mostly untapped potential.

A note on the data

The figures come from Table 2.6 of the Nigeria MIS 2025 survey, which reports percent distributions of households and of the de jure (usual resident) population by residence. Individual categories may not add precisely to subtotals because of rounding. The survey sampled 10,659 urban and 9,653 rural households, and the population figures cover 49,613 urban and 54,925 rural residents. LPG stands for liquefied petroleum gas.

The 2025 survey portrays a country where energy access still depends heavily on location. About 57 percent of households have electricity and about 36 percent cook with clean fuels, but behind those averages sits a rural population that is mostly without power and cooks mostly over wood fires. Closing that gap is one of the clearest routes to better health, more time and stronger local economies across Nigeria.

	Households			Population
Housing characteristic	Urban	Rural	Total	Urban	Rural	Total
Electricity
Yes	80.5	31.2	57.1	78.2	29.9	52.8
No	19.5	68.8	42.9	21.8	70.1	47.2
Total	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0
Main cooking technology
Clean fuels and technologies	58.6	10.4	35.7	48.5	7.2	26.8
Electric stove	1.1	0.3	0.7	0.9	0.2	0.6
Solar cooker	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
LPG/cooking gas stove	53.1	9.1	32.2	43.6	6.1	23.9
Piped natural gas stove	2.8	0.7	1.8	2.2	0.5	1.3
Biogas stove	1.7	0.4	1.0	1.7	0.3	1.0
Other fuels and technologies	40.7	88.6	63.5	51.3	92.6	73.0
Kerosene stove/liquid fuel stove not using alcohol/ethanol	1.2	0.7	0.9	1.1	0.6	0.8
Manufactured solid fuel stove	4.1	3.5	3.8	5.0	3.5	4.2
Traditional solid fuel stove	11.9	12.7	12.3	14.4	13.4	13.9
Three stone stove/open fire	23.5	71.8	46.4	30.8	75.1	54.1
No food cooked in household	0.7	0.9	0.8	0.2	0.3	0.2
Total	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0
Cooking fuel
Clean fuels and technologies (1)	58.6	10.4	35.7	48.5	7.2	26.8
Solid fuels for cooking	39.1	87.8	62.2	49.9	91.9	72.0
Coal/lignite	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Charcoal	14.9	6.6	11.0	18.0	5.8	11.6
Wood	23.5	77.0	49.0	31.0	81.6	57.6
Straw/shrubs/grass	0.3	2.7	1.4	0.5	3.1	1.8
Agricultural crop	0.0	1.2	0.6	0.0	1.2	0.7
Animal dung/waste	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1
Processed biomass (pellets) or woodchips	0.1	0.0	0.1	0.1	0.0	0.1
Garbage/plastic	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1
Sawdust	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.1	0.0	0.0
Other fuels	1.6	0.9	1.3	1.4	0.6	1.0
Gasoline/diesel	0.2	0.1	0.1	0.2	0.0	0.1
Kerosene	1.5	0.8	1.1	1.3	0.6	0.9
Other fuel	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
No food cooked in household	0.7	0.9	0.8	0.2	0.3	0.2
Total	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0
Number of households/population	10,659	9,653	20,312	49,613	54,925	104,538