By Kayode Falade
Collectively, automobile manufacturing companies in the country have the capacity to produce no fewer than 400,000 vehicles yearly, the Director-General/Chief Executive Officer of the National Automative Design and Develop Council, Jelani Aliyu Dogondaji, has disclosed.
This is as he said the council is working to effectively implement an automotive policy agenda, with a view to bringing multinational companies such as Toyota, Volkswagen and Nissan to come and directly set up their production plants in Nigeria.
Dogondaji made the disclosure on Thursday while playing host to the management of NatureNews who paid him a courtesy visit at his Abuja office.
The NADDC boss added that currently, companies such as Dangote, Sinotrucks, Innoson, Elizade, Lanre Shittu, Honda West Africa, Mikano and Nord, all are producing vehicles in the country.
He said “The council is working to effectively implement an automotive policy agenda, with a view to bringing these companies back to Nigeria. Because, when these companies come in, they will invest hundreds of millions of dollars”.
“They want to have a guarantee that regardless of whichever government is in power their investments will be protected.”
He explained that the council was commissioned to position Nigeria as one of the leading automotive manufacturing nations in the world.
According to Dogondaji, the objective is to boost the local production of vehicles in Nigeria and discourage importation of vehicles.
“We also have companies and assembly plants in Lagos, Nnewi, Kaduna and Kano while some are beginning to come up in Bauchi, Kano and Ogun states.
“These companies have a combined capacity of producing up to 400,000 vehicles per year.
“We are however doing a lot to unlock that potential and put a stop to the importation of new and fairly used vehicles into Nigeria. There are individuals and companies that are believed in the current and future economy of Nigeria, enough to invest this huge amount of money,” he added.
He explained that the country had taken major steps into aligning with the rest of the world over the current move on phasing out automobiles using combustible fuel by introducing electric cars which he said Nigeria had also produced.
To this end, Dogondaji said, the council had entered into collaboration with the Bank of Industry and the Central Bank of Nigeria to provide long-term, single digit facilities for automotive start-ups to empower Nigerians and support local production.
While elucidating the current achievements of Nigeria in the production of electric vehicles, the DG disclosed that the project had created numerous job opportunities in the country in line with the national gas expansion programme.
The DG, however, took the management of NatureNews to test drive the first electric vehicle in Nigeria which could cover a distance of 482km when fully charged.
He told the NatureNews management led by the Managing Director, Mr Rasheed Yusuf, that the council had also set up standards testing facilities in Zaria, Lagos and Enugu and any car produced in Nigeria would have to be tested and certified by NADDC.
According to him, the council has also partnered three Nigerian varsities (University of Nigeria Nnsukka, University of Lagos and the Usman Danfodio University, Sokoto) on electric technology transfer pilot programme.
