President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday commissioned Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing Company Limited (IVM), Nnewi, Anambra State, among other projects also commissioned in his one-day visit to the state.
While commissioning the project President Jonathan commended the chairman of the company, Chief Innocent Chukwuma, who he said established the company to create job opportunities, and as well, improve the economy of the nation, adding that it was his pleasure to be associated with the great achievement of the chairman of IVM.
President Jonathan described the event as a day of happiness which he said was an indication of the drive he expected as the country entered another fifty years of Nigeria as an independent nation.
In 1960, the number of African countries that featured at the same level of economic and industrial development have all left us behind. The present Nigerian generation agreed that we must retrace our history and move forward, meet them up and even surpass them, the President noted.
He said he could remember that not too long ago, he commissioned mass transit vehicles in Abuja for Bank of Industry and he had told them that Nigeria would not continue importing vehicles and other equipment, whether electronic military hardwares, because of the country’s high consumption rate.
President Jonathan assured that his administration would work out modalities to ensure that some of the foreign companies establish their plants in Nigeria, promising that his Chief Economic Adviser is currently on that.
I’m indeed happy that Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing Plant is not just assembling parts that are imported. But from all indication, it is only the engine that is being imported from China. Apart from that, every other thing is manufactured here. Even in abroad, no particular company produces the whole parts, without importing parts from other companies, the President concluded.
In his speech, Governor Peter Obi said that IVM is the first indigenous vehicle manufacturing plant. He regretted that immediately after the foundation laying ceremony, the Chinese people that came to commence construction at the company were kidnapped which eventually led to the death of one of them.
He said the ugly incident prompted the Chinese government and their people to pull out of the company and only returned after series of negotiations.
Chief Chukwuma in his address said the day would remain memorable in the history of the company, adding that it was tough and rough at the beginning of the motor project.
We never knew we could survive the ups and downs and then have a day like this when the President of Africa’s most populous nation will be physically present to officially commission the company, he said.
Chief Chukwuma said that the mission of the company is to drastically reduce the prices of vehicles and cut down the country’s dependence on imported vehicles, saying that it did it with motorcycles and would do it again with vehicles.