The new face of made-in-Nigeria vehicle
It was a sunny Wednesday. As usual, the streets of Ikeja were busy. Hawkers buzzed along the town looking for buyers. Commercial vehicle drivers parked in the middle of the roads while their conductors beckoned on passengers. The police and the traffic control officers pummelled erring drivers. Under-15-year-old beggars moved about chasing well-dressed men and women for money. ‘Corporate’ beggars told phony tales of loss of valuables to phantom robbers.
Mad men and women sauntered aimlessly, scavenging for food. Traffic jammed the major roads leading into Ogba, a district in Ikeja.
Standing in the middle of Ogba was Interstreet Messenger Limited, a company that had stood for 11 years.
The firm was hardly in the news because only very few knew that a new made-in-Nigeria vehicle had been birthed there.
Totally Nigerian furniture, with 100 per cent raw materials sourced locally, was already standing.
The major work on the vehicle had been done. All the raw materials were obtained locally, without any need for foreign exchange with which to import inputs. It was not going to be another ‘Keke Marwa’, which was an imported idea from India. It would not become a vehicle whose structure would be dictated by the outside world. The vehicle was 60 to 70 percent ready, with features such as chasis, suspension, and metal seats. This vehicle would be unveiled in 2017.
“We just want to show the world that we can produce our own car,” Azuka Ijekeye, managing director of Interstreet, told this writer, who took a tour of the factory on October 16.
“What we have here is Nigerian; we are not copying anything. We are not going to compromise the quality. By the time we are through, it will have become exportable. Even if we are not going to export to Europe, we can at least export to Namibia,” Ijekeye said.
Nigeria is mired in recession, caused by oil price lows and lack of clear policy direction. Many companies, including vehicle assemblers, cannot get foreign exchange to import inputs.
“This is the best thing that can happen to Nigeria’s industrialisation,” the managing director said.
“There is no barrier to making things like plywood, paper, furniture and even vehicles in Nigeria. The unavailability of dollars is an opportunity for those who can get the work done,” he said, adding that the vehicle would have a standard speed level and be cheap to maintain.
He added the government needed to understand that the country’s technology at the moment was at the post-secondary school level, as the majority with requisite skills did not have higher education.
The vehicle was not being sponsored alone by Ijekeye. There were others who were keen to see the project come on stream, Real Sector Watch gathered.
Again, no such project would be possible without an industrial designer. Dapo Akintunde could be said to be the brain at Interstreet, while Ijekeye was the backbone.
“We have made it safe by making the whole vehicle a trust,” said Akintunde.
“I am working on another car design that uses 100 per cent natural materials that are not even steel,” he said, when asked whether he was afraid that the local raw materials could dry up at some point in the future.
The Federal Institute of Industrial Research Oshodi (FIIRO) is responsible for coming up with indigenous industrial machines to support firms like Interstreet.
The FIIRO officials were handy on the day this writer visited. Dele Oyeku, director of extension and linkages at the institute led the delegation, which also included Samson Adeyemi, director of engineering, and Omoh Umuigbe, head of industrial linkage division at FIIRO.
But Oyekun represented Gloria Elemo, director-general of FIIRO.
Speaking on behalf of Elemo, Oyeku said: “Now that we have a concept, we know it’s doable. Our engineering department has a lot of human resources to offer. They will need a lot of electronics and we have a division that handles it.“
He said FIIRO made good equipment, regretting that many companies believed that only foreign equipment was good enough.
“If you bring equipment from China, you will need their engineers to come and help you. You will keep needing them. But if you use indigenous technology, you are at an advantage because they are produced for this environment,” he said.
ODINAKA ANUDU