A maritime lawyer, Emmanuel Nwagbara, has charged the federal government to assist Nigerian automobile manufacturers in order to boost the sector and to have a standard.
Nwagbara who said this in a chat with Shipping Position Daily last week in Lagos also reiterated the need to have an industrial standard for made-in-Nigeria vehicles, even as urged manufacturers to comply with the standard.
He explained that the government can assist manufacturers to comply with the standard by providing a conducive environment for the businesses to thrive, adding that it is not the duty of manufacturers to provide the standard.
Nwagbara however distanced members of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) from the call for promoting made-in-Nigeria vehicles, saying that it is all about having standardization even as he said that the association’s main focus should be general.
According to him, “The quality of the product that should be expected in Nigeria is what should be there and to have high quality automobile manufactured in Nigeria. It calls for issues of standardization; you have a standard which should be a reference for auto manufacturing”
He reiterated that, with adequate raw materials, a manufacturer will spend less in getting quality products.
“If you have raw materials available, of course you will spend less in getting quality products; we have labour here. We need the necessary environment that will promote quality product, we need meteorology, and we need standard. We need meteorology to test that standard, we need laboratories that will check the quality of what has been produced to ensure that it complies with the standard” he concluded.
