Let’s try to lay more emphasis on skills in this clime rather than degrees!
The Board of Trustees of the Automobiles And Road Safety Initiative is pleased to welcome you all handsome and beautiful stakeholders to this program, the 2nd Nigeria Annual Automotive Industry Award.
The Award
The Board of Trustees of the Automobiles And Road Safety Initiative established the Nigeria Annual Automotive Industry Award basically to celebrate and reward the best performance and the brightest of the Nigeria Automotive Industry Stakeholders.
Quite unfortunately Nigeria is struggling through a wrenching period of survival these days. The country’s current challenges are horrendous with the worst cases being those of a run-down national economy and security.
Because of these, the Board considered the idea of shifting this year’s Award Presentation Ceremony to a more economically conducive period in the near future, but while also considering the fact that the Board just established the Award in 2022 and co-incidentally too, year 2023 marks the 10th Year Anniversary of the establishment of the NGO, the Board felt obliged to celebrate this milestone with the Award.
Awards in the local automotive industry in the country are pegged to appreciation of developments of the various automobiles, automobile products as well as the automobiles/products producers.
In the nearest future, the Board of Directors of the Automobiles And Road Safety Initiative will be laying much emphasis on the various governments’ drive at making the vehicles last on the Nigerian Roads, with the provision of lasting motor-able, vehicle-worthy roads to the motorists across the country. The issue of vehicles’ being road-worthy should be deemphasized for now for motor-able roads worthy for vehicles; as very many roads across the country are in bad shapes.
Funding
The Board of Trustees of the Automobiles And Road Safety Initiative applied to the Corporate Affairs Commission of Nigeria sometimes in the last quarter of the year 2012 for due recognition with its Certificate as required by law to operate in the country.
The Corporate Affairs Commission however demanded from us; an ‘instrument’ indicating the Approval as well as the Consent of the Federal Road Safety Commission for our intention to ‘dabble’ into what everyone believed was the prerogative of the FRSC.
We however received the much sought after Consent in early 2013 and forwarded it to the CAC which promptly incorporated our Board of Trustees on March, 2013.
With the requirements from the CAC before our Board of Trustees was incorporated, it was obvious to us and any discerning stakeholder too that the Federal Road Safety Commission is supposed to be our SUPERVISORS.
Thankfully, except our outing in Bayelsa State early this year 2023, there has been no other safety related activities that we have carried out in the last 10 years without the presence and presentation of papers by the personnel of the Federal Road Safety Corps.
The question now is: has the headquarters of the Federal Road Safety Commission ever received any report of our positive activities across the country leveraging as the human face of the FRSC and sensitizing as well as re-orientating a critical section of the factors that can lead to and cause accidents on the nation’s roads? In every honesty, I doubt it as we have had cause to plead vigorously with some FRSC top-shots in some states before they could attend our events. We are using this forum to call on the FRSC Management under the leadership of the Corps Marshal and Chief Executive to make a case for us in the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), being the overall Supervising Authority of the FRSC to allocate fund to our Organisation on yearly basis and also to any other individual/organisation that is actively contributing to reduction of ugly incidents on the Nigerian Roads.
The Automobiles And Road Safety Initiative officials constantly travelled round the country; exposed to so many dangers on the highways and risking all; including our precious lives and we are not being recognized and compensated by the FRSC; either monetarily and, or with utility vehicles, so many of which we believe are lying waste at the FRSC headquarters; this is no more acceptable.
If not for undying passion, we wouldn’t have travelled this road for this long and for so far; though we have the Management of 11 Plc (formerly Mobil Oil Nigeria) to thank for making available precious scarce resources to keep motivating us in this onerous task of contributing to reduction of accidents on the roads through our advocacies, seminars and workshops for the members of the Nigeria Automobile Technicians Association (NATA); a very essential sector we identified as having critical roles to play in making the vehicles roadworthy and safe for commuters.
The two chambers of the National Assembly of Nigeria, have Chairmen of Committees on Land Transport, the Diaspora and the Non-Governmental Organisations.
How effective have these committee chairmen be? Has fund not being allocated to each of the committees for the purpose for which they were set-up?
Honesty, we sincerely feel that things should change in this country. Must we continue to wait for somebody we know, to help us talk to somebody they know to bring our case to the authorities?
Urgently ladies and gentlemen, we need adequate funding!
Aging Repair/Maintenance Practitioners
To our greater dismay, the Board of Trustees of the Automobiles And Road Safety Initiative discovered that reasonable percentage of the current automobile repair/ maintenance technicians in the country are aging and are not adequately equipped; education-wise to embrace and acquire requisite latest automotive technology and developments to be properly fit to function as repairers of modern day automobiles that nowadays come with sophisticated brain boxes.
West Africa Automotive Institute
The above stated reasons led the Board of Trustees of Automobiles And Road Safety Initiative to establish the West Africa Automotive Institute which infrastructure was launched on Wednesday 14th December, 2022 here at the Sheraton Hotel during the 1st Nigeria Annual Automotive Industry Award presentation.
There is no doubt that the universities and polytechnics are doing so much to train engineering graduates to manage technical challenges at the workshops. However, the West Africa Automotive Institute is established to address the obvious gaps therein and to train and re-train younger people from the communities and colleges on the best and most authoritative technics of automobile maintenance.
Let’s try to lay more emphasis on skills in this clime rather than degrees!
The Institute on rental basis gotten a gigantic facility at Ilesa, Osun State early this year for use as its temporary campus; but unfortunately, after the Board have made payment, it was rudely shocked to discover that there was a subsisting rental on the property.
Recently however, we commenced conversation with the Federal Government of Nigeria to concede one of its agencies’ properties situated in Osun State to the institute to use as campus.
While believing that the expansive abandoned property will soon be conceded to the institute, we are very optimistic to announce to you that proper learning as well as training activities will commence there-in in January, 2024.
Appeal
Meanwhile the Board is using this opportunity to appeal to kind hearted stakeholders and corporate entities around the globe to donate relevant practical teaching equipment and other infrastructures to the institute to enable it impact positively on the future generations of skillful automotive experts.
All stakeholders are called upon to wear new garments to fit into the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda to see Nigeria attaining an enviable position in the comity of nations; especially as it relates to Road Safety Action Plan 2023 – 2030.
On behalf of the Board of Trustees of the Automobiles And Road Safety Initiative I welcome you once again to this historic 10th Year Anniversary Celebration and the 2nd Nigeria Annual Automotive Industry Award presentation.
God bless Nigeria.
We thank you all for coming.
SAMUEL OLOYEDE ORIOWO
President
Tel: +2347083808902
(Text of welcome address delivered by Samuel Oloyede Oriowo, President of Automobiles And Road Safety Initiative at the 10th Year Anniversary Celebration and 2nd Nigeria Annual Automotive Industry Award presentation held on Monday 27th November, 2023, at the Sheraton Lagos Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos)