**Targets 1 million jobs
By Harry Awurumibe, Editor Abuja Bureau
The federal government will seek a leglegislative support for automative industries in Nigeria, targeting between 500,000 to a million jobs.
Abia State Governor Alex Otti,.who was one of the five state governors who briefed State House Correspondents after the maiden NEC meeting on Thursday at Presidential Villa, Abuja, also revealed that federal government is seriously working out ways to mitigate the harsh economic effects of the removal of subsidy in petrol and foreign exchange.
Said he: “As part of the inaugural National Economic Council (NEC) meeting today, major focus was on the removal of petroleum subsidy and implied removal of subsidy on foreign exchange, which has led to some convergence of some sort.
The impact of these two actions definitely is increased prices. And that’s a way to solve the problem and reduced the shock, a presentation was made by the National Automotive Design and Development Council on the great things that are happening in the automotive industry.
It was that about six states in the country, including Lagos, Ogun, Anambra, Enugu, Akwa Ibom, Kaduna and Kano and have benefited from domestic production of vehicles or assembling of vehicles by Nigerian companies operating in Nigeria.
And these companies include INNOSON, Maikano, Dangote Peugeot, Peugeot automobile of Nigeria, Stallion Hundai, Honda, Elizade/Toyota, Coscharis and Ford, Kojo Motors, Jet Systems motors. At the moment, about 50,000 jobs have been created by this simple action of either assembling vehicles in Nigeria or producing them Nigeria.
A great feat is that some of these companies have gone into the manufacturing or assembly of electric vehicles and vehicles powered by CNG – compressed natural gas. The impact of this is that the pressure on the price of petroleum products particularly PMS will be reduced. The more we use electric vehicles and CNG powered vehicles.
Some of the decisions that we were taken include that legislative support will need to be given to these companies that are doing great things in Nigeria, it is important to underscore the point that former President had made a commitment that by 2060 that Nigeria would join countries that will eliminate fossil fuel powered vehicles and move to electric vehicles in pursuit of the net zero emission that some of the countries in Europe, America and Asia have signed on to. So if that must happen, then we need to ramp up the production of electric vehicles and CNG vehicles.
It is estimated that if we give legislative support to this company, that about a million jobs from the 50,000 jobs that exist in that industry would be created. It was also suggested that the funding that is required by most of these vehicle manufacturers and assemblers shall be made available to them. So that we begin reduce the dependence on PMS and other fossil fuel powered vehicles.
Finally, it was also suggested that Electric Vehicle Development Plan, will fast track the development of electric vehicles should be supported wholeheartedly by the new government.
The reality is that we cannot run away from the removal of petroleum subsidy. We should have done it a long time ago. But we must salute the courage of the current government to bit the bullet and remove it.
Initially, it had reduced the consumption from about 66, 67 million litres a day to just about 40 million. And as time goes on, the consumption will continue to go down. We know there are implications particularly for the poorest of the poor.
And that is why this government is seriously looking at palliatives to at least deal with the shock that the poor of our society goes through” .
