BY: FEMI OWOEYE Dear Otunba Niyi Adebayo, Following your appointment as Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, one of your first move was to order a review of the nation’s proposed Automotive Industry Development Plan, which suffered another setback after 2019 General election. But in a reported media statement, you attempted to rekindle the hope of the Nigerian auto industry ...

PATRICIA SCOTLAND (Commonwealth Secretary-General) Our world seems to be changing faster than ever – technologically, environmentally, socially – and in so many other ways. It is hard for any of us to keep up with the astonishing pace and scale of developments, and their impact for better or for worse on our own lives and the ways in which they affect ...

Neglecting the auto industry has put a dent on the achievements of President Muhammadu Buhari’s regime since 2015. It was not peculiar to Buhari’s administration, though. Yes, no regime, military or civilian has succeeded in growing the auto industry. It has been betrayal each time the nation attempted to join the automotive industrialized nations. Efforts to grow the industry from 1970s ...

MATILDA FRANCES Insecurity on Nigerian highways has reached an embarrassing state. It is so bad these days that many are afraid of making inter-state travel for fear of being robbed or kidnapped.Party politicians have unsurprisingly made most of it, playing blame game, and ethnic hatred. However, more than opening talk shops, a permanent and effective solution is what the nation ...

FEMI OWOEYE Serious governments around the world do not place the auto industry on the back seat. For four years, we have had so much talk, but less action regarding the development and growth of the Nigerian automobile industry. It has been worse since the current Director General of the National Automotive Design and Development Council (NADDC), Mr. Jelani Aliyu, ...

FEMI OWOEYE Your Excellency, That two administrations found it impossible to get Nigeria’s new auto policy written in the nation’s statutes book is anomalous. Between 2011 and 2015, the bill got as far as President Goodluck Jonathan’s desk. An insider of the then administration argued that the president could not sign the bill due to pressure on him during his ...

MANNY PHILIPSON The country’s automotive sub-sector may as it were be enmeshed in fresh round of uncertainty, if the recently retained 14 percent Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) is anything to endorse. Just last Thursday 22 November 2018, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor Godwin Emefiele announced after the 264th Monetary Policy Committee meeting in Abuja that the decision to ...

JOE OLOWOJOBA Recent news about Kojo Motors’ setting up assembly plant for Yutong Bus in Nigeria is commendable. This effort as well as that of other already existing plants will, no doubt, create thousands of jobs and add positively to Nigerian economy. Given this development, I challenge members of parliaments in states and federal level as well as politicians, Government ...

FEMI OWOEYE Nigeria’s re-launched automotive policy was barely two years old, when President Muhammadu Buhari assumed office in 2015. By then, auto assembly plants had been sprouting again across the country. And so to those, who understand auto industry as one of the leading employers of labour in the world, Nigeria’s industrial future looked brilliant.  But as at at Tuesday, ...

Reader’s No-Hold-back’s Comment on Our Story titled: Peugeot Supports Meals on Wheels Extreme Ride for Hunger Cycle Tour I don’t see a reasonable or sustainable path forward with the idea that cyclists are rightful users of public infrastructure while at the same time refusing to pay any fees/taxes specific to that use. I think this all boils down to being ...