‘Automotive law will restrict vehicle imports’

The Director General of the National Automotive Design and Development Council (NADDC), Jelani Aliyu, has said the council is repositioning the automotive sector with the introduction of the Automotive Bill which is awaiting presidential assent.

Aliyu made this known during a national workshop organized by the council in collaboration with the Ministry of Environment on reducing low sulphur fuels and global fuel economy initiative in Nigeria.

He said the bill will mark the end of Nigeria being a dumping ground for all manner of dilapidated and bad cars and also pave way for job creation.

“We can’t afford to allow dilapidated cars to keep coming into Nigeria. That is why we have the automotive bill which has passed the lower and upper chambers of the legislature and currently waiting for presidential assent,” he added.

The DG added that the council met with Toyota, Nissan, Volkswagen and others in South Africa recently, where they agreed to come into Nigeria full time to invest in the production of cars in the country, adding that the only hindrance at the moment is the presidential assent that will not just boost investor confidence but also local producers and bring back the magnificence of Nigeria’s automotive sector.

Jane Akumu of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) said air pollution which emanate from smoky cars and other factors posed the highest environmental risk that accounts for about 7 million deaths in the world and 20,000 in Nigeria annually.