Give Us Mechanic Village, Auto Techs Tell Fashola

To avoid incessant demolition of mechanic settlements and harassment of its members in Lagos state, Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola has been urged to build a befitting and modern mechanic village for members of Nigeria Automobile Technicians Association (NATA).

The state chairman of NATA, Asiwaju Jacob Omonide Fayeun made the call during the 3-day auto technical workshop and exhibition in Lagos, which ended Thursday. Fayeun said: “We are tired of this incessant demolition of our mechanic villages, driving us away from streets, roadside and under bridges without providing alternatives for us. Our members are suffering in silence. For the dream of transforming Lagos State to a mega city to become a reality, Lagos state government must allocate land to National Automobile Council to build modern, befitting and conducive mechanic villages in the state for NATA members.”

He also said the project will be financed by the Federal Government and the only support required from the state government is the allocation of land to site these mechanic villages.

He frowned at the government’s continued alliance with the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) to the detriment of NATA.

“We are quite aware of what government is doing for NURTW and the recognition accorded to their state chairman. But without NATA, NURTW is nowhere and the economy will be grounded.

Fayeun praised the efforts of the National Automobile Council (NAC) for the assistance given to some states by providing Diagnostic and Injector Cleaning Machines to 19 states.

“We sincerely appreciate NAC for these gestures, but as Oliver Twist, we will always ask for more, Lagos state being a Mega city and Centre of Excellence with the largest population of Auto Technicians (mechanics) in Nigeria and Africa as a whole, we ask for more machines because the existing ones installed by NAC are not enough to serve even 2 percent of our members and customers.”

Similarly, Fayeun thanked the management of Mobil Oil Nigeria Plc for supporting and sponsoring of the annual workshop and exhibition and training of over 30,000 NATA members, and urged them to re-introduce overall branded uniforms to be used in various mechanic villages.

While speaking on the contributions of the automobile industry in building Nigeria’s economy, Benedict John Okoh of Automedics outlined the challenges the profession popularly tagged ‘Mechanic’ has gone through ranging from strange technologies to complex vehicular systems which tasks members on the need for upgrade of skills. “As professionals, we should seek or acquire more knowledge and stop believeing that we have known it all. There is an urgent need to upgrade our status by re-training, synergising by information sharing and working in an atmosphere of peace.”

In his remarks, the Director General of National Automotive Council (NAC), Dr Aminu Jalal, stressed that the benefits of the automotive industry to an economy (job and wealth creation, technology acquisition, etc.) are directly related to the level of local content in its vehicles, and concluded that “to develop our own industry, the government should direct that, as a first step, 50% of vehicle purchased by government should be from the local assembly plants, while the tariff on imported Buit-Up Units (FBU) should be increased to 35%. The tariff on imported tyres should be harmonised at 20%.”

The programme ended with the Lubricant day yesterday, as previous days had the Health day, Technical session and Opening ceremony with a keynote address by the DG of NAC.

— Daniels Ekugo