₦airaland Forum

The Super Falcons of Nigeria defeated the Scorpions of Gambia 0-1 at the Independence Stadium in Bakau, Gambia in the first leg of their qualifying series for the 2018 African Women's Nations Cup on Wednesday June 6th, 2018.

The second leg of the encounter will hold at the Agege Stadium in Lagos at 4pm on Monday, June 11th, 2018. The winner of the tie will qualify for the African Women's Nations Cup, which will be hosted by Ghana in November.

The top three teams at the African Women's Nations Cup will qualify for the FIFA Women's World Cup which will be hosted by France in June and July 2019.

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Other results

Kenya 2-1 Equatorial Guinea

Zambia 0-1 Zimbabwe

Lesotho 0-1 South Africa

Ivory Coast 2-2 Mali

The return leg is on Monday June 11 at Agege Stadium, Lagos by 4pm

Full Time! Gambia 0-1 Nigeria - Okoronkwo Amarachi 19'

90' Three minutes added time

Gambia 0-1 Nigeria

85' Gambia 0-1 Nigeria

71' Nigeria's subs:

Ngozi Okobi replaces Asisat Oshoala, Uchendu Chinaza takes over from Anam Imo

0-1

70' Offside! Imo beats her maker to tap in Oshoala's cross for a goal but the centre referee rules for offside

0-1

60' Gambia's chance! Penda Bah tries a long range effort but on-holiday Tochukwu Oluehi makes an easy catch

0-1

57' Chance! Anam Imo rises high to the sky for a header off Oshoala's cross but Gaye makes an easy save of her effort.

0-1

50' Gambia 0-1 Nigeria

Meanwhile Enyimba has defeated Lobi Stars 1-0 in Calabar.

46' Gambia restart the encounter at the Bakau's Independence Stadium

Gambia 0-1 Nigeria

In the early qualifying match of the day, Leandra Smeda's ninth minute goal earned South Africa's @Banyana_Banyana a slim 1-0 defeat of Lesotho at the Setsoso Stadium.

HT' Gambia 0-1 Nigeria - Okoronkwo Amarachi 19' in Bakau, Gambia

45' Two minutes added time at Bakau's Independence Stadium

Gambia 0-1 Nigeria

40' Gambia 0-1 Nigeria

36' Chance! Ordega misses in front of goal

Still Gambia 0-1 Nigeria

32' Gambia 0-1 Nigeria - Okoronkwo Amarachi's long range effort seperate both sides here in Bakau, Gambia

28' Yellow! Desire Oparanozie gets first caution of the game for a rough challenge on Metta Sanneh

Gambia 0-1 Nigeria

24' Back on! Oparanozie attempts a header but goes into goalkeeper Gaye. The Gambian falls yet again to receive medical attention

Gambia 0-1 Nigeria

22' Game halt!

Gambia's goalkeeper Aminata Gaye on the ground and receives treatment

Gambia 0-1 Nigeria

19' Goal! Okoronkwo Amarachi scores from nearly 25 yards

Gambia 0-1 Nigeria

@NGSuper_Falcons ·


12' Another chance! Oshoala's header finds Ordega in front of the area but the latter's efforr goes inches wide from close range

0-0

@NGSuper_Falcons ·

8' Nearly! Penda Bah heads wide a good opportunity for Gambia off a brilliant cross as Nigeria escape conceding an early goal

0-0

@NGSuper_Falcons


4' Chance! Nigeria misses a chance to earn an early lead as Oparanozie fails to make a good hit from a goalmouth scramble

Gambia 0-0 Nigeria

Team list

https://twitter.com/NGSuper_Falcons/status/1004392405133660160

Picture of an Ashok-Leyland (Lagos BRT) bus in front of the VON plant in Ojo, Lagos.

In search of the Nigerian car

Posted By: Joe Agbro Jr.
On: February 16, 2014

https://thenationonlineng.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/VON-891x470.jpg

Since the early 1960s, the dream of riding the Nigerian car was only fleetingly realised. However, following the new automotive policy, the country seems to be getting ready to drive the made-in-Nigeria car again, Joe Agbro Jr., reports

To many kids growing up around Ojo, Lagos in the 1990s, Volks was a bus-stop along the Mile 2 – Badagry Expressway. It was also popularly known for football as crowds gathered there to watch footballers ply their trade. Forgotten was the actual purpose for which the sprawling compound was built in the early 1970s – making cars. To say the company was facing hard times at that time was an understatement as the level of decrepit was visible.

However, there is a new lease to the place. Acquired by Stallion Motors, the company now wears a refurbished look. And a recent visit to VON Nigeria as the plant is now known revealed that activities were going on there. Parked all around the compound were red Ashok/Leyland buses, the type of Bus Rapid Transport, BRT. This is in addition to other vehicles that are being assembled here. Inside one of the sprawling halls, local and expatriate workers worked on buses at different stages of construction. Come April, the company is set to roll out Nigeria’s first Sport Utility Vehicle, SUV. And the managing director of VON, Tokunbo Aromolaran, is elated. He should be.

Built for Nigerian road.
While the first SUV might be a feat, the idea of the made-in-Nigeria car is not novel. The adventure began in 1959 when UAC (now known as UAC of Nigeria Plc) set up a plant, Niger Motors, that produced Bedford trucks using semi-knocked down kits. Today, Niger Motors is GM Nigeria, jointly owned by the UAC of Nigeria and General Motors, USA. It was, however, around the eve of the 1970s that very serious attention was given to local automobile production in Nigeria. Yakubu Gowon as military ruler invited 16 vehicle-manufacturing companies on October 6, 1969, to establish assembly plants. Six of those companies were selected and government partnered with them.

And between 1970 and 1980, vehicle assembly plants were set up in the country. Two of those plants, Peugeot Automobile Nigeria (PAN), located in Kaduna and Volkswagen of Nigeria (VON) in Lagos, were dedicated to churning out cars. The other four assembly plants – Anambra Motor Manufacturing Company in Enugu, Steyr Nigeria Limited in Bauchi, National Truck Manufacturers in Kano, and Leyland Nigeria Limited in Ibadan, assembled trucks and buses. Other private companies like UAC, Leventis, SCOA, BEWAC, and RT Briscoe also established assembly plants.

Automobile Peugeot of France’s proposal was selected as a fall-out from the 1969 meeting on May 7, 1971 and Peugeot Automobile of Nigeria Limited, set up in Kakuri, Kaduna State, was incorporated on December 15, 1972. On March 2, 1975, Peugeot vehicles started to roll off the plant. The 504 and 505 series received heavy patronage by Nigerians, especially the government of the day, as official cars. Why not? After all, it was built for the Nigerian road.

Volkswagen of Nigeria Limited also joined the fray. At its plant in Ojo, Lagos, it churned the Beetle and other Volkswagen brands. And Leyland, Steyr, NTM, and ANAMMCO in Ibadan, Bauchi, Kano, and Enugu respectively, started producing buses and trucks. The companies were producing and doing fine. All seemed to be well.

Gathering dust

However, as economy hardship set in, and imbalances came in, manufacturers began to close shop as many of these products became more expensive. The Structural Adjustment Programme, SAP, which was introduced by military ruler, General Ibrahim Babangida, further worsened the economic plight of most people and saw to it that less people could afford brand new cars. And the late eighties into the early 1990s, Nigerians witnessed a proliferation of foreign-used vehicles or what is commonly known as Tokunbo cars over brand new cars because they were cheaper.

And in 2012, Director-General, National Automotive Council, NAC, Aminu Jalal, said the nation imported 200,000 used-vehicles and 80,000 new-vehicles annually which cost N400bn. This condition started killing the local automobile companies and local assembly plants started going moribund. According to the chief operation officer of Nigerian Automotive Manufacturers Association (NAMA), an umbrella body for assembly plants in Nigeria, Arthur Madueke, when Nigeria’s auto industry was at its peak in the mid 1980s, the assembly plants produced more cars for Nigerians than they needed.

But things nose-dived when government policies became inconsistent, Madueke said.

‘Government was not able to monitor the agreements to see who was doing what and when they (government) allowed importation to flood in freely,’ he said. ‘So they (technical partners) started to use Nigeria as a marketing outlet instead of continuing to develop the local industry.’

It was a condition that had to be reversed. And government had plans.

Last year, during a tour of Peugeot’s Kaduna plant by the NAC board, Alhaji Ibrahim Boyi, the managing director of PAN Nigeria Limited, lamented the deplorable situation the company weathered. “In 1985, we produced 90,000 cars,” Boyi said. “Government policy was very favourable then. But after that, the environment became very bad as all kinds of vehicles started coming into the country.”

And as at last year, PAN that now assembles Peugeot 307 and Changan Alsvin produced around 30 cars daily and with a reduced workforce of 250 compared to 4,000 in the 1980s.

Revving up again

Till 2007, when these six assembly plants were privatised, they merely spluttered, producing well-below their capacities while some crumbled. Following the privatisation, PAN Limited became PAN Nigeria Limited, VON Limited bought by Stallion Motors became VON Nigeria Limited, and Leyland became Leyland Buslan.

And following NAC’s recommendation, the new automotive policy hopes to hike the price of Tokunbos to make them unattractive by raising taxes on imported vehicles to 70% of the car’s original cost. According to stakeholders in the automotive industry, this price hike was to discourage the importation of cars, whether new or used, which overall had negative effects on the nation’s economy.

Aromolaran put it bluntly: “What the incentive has tried to do is to make it easy for people who are ready to invest to be able to compete effectively with people who have already reached a certain level world over and has made it difficult for us to thrive before now.”

Hence, from Kano to Ibadan to Lagos, Ode Remo to Kaduna, Nnewi to Kano, and Bauchi to Enugu, assembly lines are once again producing vehicles. At the VON premises, it’s a frenetic pace at which local and expatriate workers worked side by side on the assembly lines. It currently produces Ashok/Leyland buses used in the BRT system of the Lagos Stat government. Also, the company is set to produce the Nissan Patrol, Nigeria’s first SUV. Though, only 200 workers are employed on the line that makes buses at VON, the managing director said: “As we are hoping to go into passenger car production, we see that number increasing by about 150 per cent to about 500 very shortly.”

The story of activity is the same at Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing (IVM) Company, in Nnewi, Anambra State, which founder Chief Innocent Ifediaso Chukwuma incorporated in February 2007. IVM, which started as a trading business in 1976, now produces commercial automobiles, utility vehicles and passenger cars, in collaboration with some Chinese auto manufacturers. It also enjoys government patronage as recently in January, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved N240.2m to purchase 44 locally-made IVM G5 Jeeps for chairmen and coordinators of the Subsidy Reinvestment Programme (SURE-P) across the country.

At ANAMMCO in Enugu, Mercedes Benz trucks began to be churned out after a lull. In the case of Leyland it was sold in 1994 to its current owners but this was revoked two years later by the late General Sani Abacha. And in 2006, in a Sale Revalidation/Privatisation Process the company was returned to its current owner. Since then, it started production of buses, three-ton cargo trucks, and specialised three-ton garbage trucks, leveraging on support of its technical partner – China FAW (China Fist Auto Works), the largest automobile company in China.

Another company producing vehicles locally is Proforce Limited. Located in Ode-Remo, Ogun State, the company designs and manufactures armoured vehicles that are resistant to AK-47 assaults and Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs). And since 2010, it has made various armoured vehicles for police and military operations as well as bullion vans for conveying cash.

According to the new automotive policy, vehicle manufacturers in Nigeria are to enjoy zero duty on Completely-Knocked-Down (CKD) parts while Semi-Knocked-Down (SKD) parts attract five per cent duty. This contrasts 35 per cent levy and 35 per cent duty for imported cars and 35 per cent duty for commercial vehicles. Also, the policy recognises that there will be development of component manufacturing in Nigeria. There are certain aspects of the policy that have already specified the components that will not be part of the CKD package that anybody is going to import.

And as part of efforts geared towards revamping the automotive sector, the Nigerian Automotive Manufacturers Association (NAMA), an umbrella body for all assembly plants in Nigeria with 16 members included companies such as PAN Nigeria in Kaduna, National Trucks Manufacturers Limited (NTM) in Kano, Steyr Nigeria Limited in Bauchi, and ANAMMCO in Enugu was set up. Other members are Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing Company in Nnewi, Zahav Automobile in Lagos, Leyland Buslan in Ibadan; VON Automobile, Lagos, and Leventis Motors in Lagos. The rest were Iron Products Industries Limited in Lagos, Gorgeous Metals Limited in Kaduna, Autobahn Techniques in Lagos, Proforce Limited (armoured vehicles) in Ode-Remo, Ogun State, Lasbag in Akure, and others.

Of these, Autobahn Techniques and Lasbag make tricycles, NTM now makes tractors, while others makes cars, buses and trucks.

And one major fear is that vehicles would just end up being wholly imported with replacement with local content being put to rest by stakeholders.

‘Peugeot plant in Kaduna attained 35 per cent local content in the 80s,’ Madueke said, ‘and Peugeot sourced some of its components from Nnewi, from Port Harcourt and other places, and abroad.’

And already VON Nigeria has achieved 30 per cent local content replacement in assemblying Ashok/Leyland buses. “We started Ashok/Leyland with a 100 per cent importation of the parts. Today, we only import about 70 per cent of the parts,” Aromolaran said. “Over time, we have been able to identify local components and over time we have been able to substitute them.”

However, with the current trend, Madueke, like other players, is optimistic, saying the lessons from government’s previous interventions has been learnt.

‘The fact remains too that most of the companies today are no longer government-owned,’ he said. ‘They are private sector-driven, and I believe that given the environment created by President Goodluck Jonathan, they are going to do a lot better than when government was in control, provided that there is consistency in policy, and that the policy is properly implemented.’

http://thenationonlineng.net/in-search-of-the-nigerian-car/