'Institutionalizing auto policy' Africa, Nigeria advised to start building its own vehicle

The Federal Government has been tasked to put in place the Automotive Industry Development Plan to reap the gains of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA).

Managing Director, Nissan’s Africa Regional Business Unit, Mike Whitfield, in a chat with newsmen in Lagos said while Africa accounts for only 1.3 percent of the world’s vehicles, the continent comprises 17% of the globe’s people with motorisation rate at 42 per 1000 individuals, compared to the global average of 182.

But Whitfield, who is also the President of the Association of African Automotive Manufacturers (AAAM), said the potential of the industry can be unlocked through institutionalizing auto policy.

National Automotive Industrial Development Plan (NAIDP) known as auto policy has suffered bureaucratic bottlenecks over the years.

However, the government through the National Automotive Design and Development Council (NADDC) had assured that the auto policy bill would be passed into law before the end of 2021.

Whitfield urged Nigeria and other concerned African nations to, without delay, put in place the policy, saying it would create incentives for OEMS (original equipment manufacturers) and automotive manufacturers, to set up assembly plants in those countries.

This is in addition to ensuring transfer of skills, industrialisation and economic diversification.

He said: “The biggest problem is that 80% of the African vehicle fleet is second hand, imported from the UK, the US and Japan.

“Developing auto policies to create indigenous automotive industries, further underpinned by auto pact to ensure that economic trade regions within Africa, allows for sustainable intra-continental trade. It will also create a very real continental powerhouse empowered to export vehicles to the international market, as South Africa’s automotive industry is currently doing.

“Another compelling reason for Africa to start building its own vehicles and trading within its regions is that, in less than 30 years’ time, the vehicles that Africa has been accustomed to, absorbing from the rest of the world for so long, will be electric. The dilemma is that Africa will not be ready.

“What we should be doing is working towards this, helping to industrialize our continent, preparing for that transition by developing an automotive sector that creates real mobility solutions for a continent with the youngest population and a growing middle class which is rapidly urbanising.”