NIGERIA DREAM KILLERS!!! THE FULL STORY ON HOW THE NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT KILLED THE 1ST CAR COMPANY LOCALLY PRODUCED BY DR.IZUOGU,AN IGBO MAN... SEE
NIGERIA DREAM KILLERS!!! THE FULL STORY ON HOW
THE NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT KILLED THE 1ST CAR COMPANY LOCALLY PRODUCED BY DR.IZUOGU,AN IGBO MAN... SEE
Christian Rowland Reporting live for ODOGWU MEDIA.... Do you know this Igbo Biafran ? His name is Ezekiel_Izuogu .. The first to build an indigenous car in Africa called Z-600. Nigeria Killed his dream and he was silenced...
Read here... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Izuogu_Z-600
Dr. Ezekiel Izuogu : How the Izuogu Z-600 dream was Destroyed
In 1997, a brilliant Igbo Electrical Engineer and Lecturer at the Federal
polytechnic Nekede, Dr. Ezekiel Izogu designed and developed the Izuogu Z-600,
the first African indigenous manufactured car.
The car was described by the BBC as ‘ the African dream machine
as 90% of its parts were sourced locally. At a projected sales cost of 2000 dollars, it would have taken
the world by storm and become the cheapest and most affordable car on earth. With mass production planned under Izogu
Motors plant in Naze owerri, the prospects of an industrial revolution in Igbo land and Nigeria, was in the making.
The car was equipped with a self made 1.8L four cylinder engine
that got 18mpg and allowed the car to achieve a top speed of 140 km/h. Front Wheel Drive (FWD) was chosen over
Rear Wheel Drive (RWD) because a transmission tunnel, which RWD would require,
would be more expensive to fabricate. So 90% of the car’s components were made locally.
General Sani Abacha set up a 12 man panel of inquiry made up of professionals
to ascertain the road worthiness and authenticity of the car and after several
days of probing, the committee gave Dr. Izuogu’s car a clean bill of health, recommending
that some of the bumps on the body of the car be smoothened.
It is worthy to
note that this was five years before
India built their first car known as the Indi. At a well organized unveiling
ceremony which had General Abacha represented by Oladipo Diya, over 20 foreign ambassadors
and thousands of people in attendance, the federal government promised a grant
of 235 million naira to Dr. Izuogu.
An excited Dr. Izuogu is still waiting for that grant till
today. No dime was released to him. In 2006, the government of South Africa invited Dr. Izuogu to do a presentation about
the car in the presence of several world class engineers. Being impressed with
his presentation, they invited him to come and set up a plant in South Africa
and begin the production of the car.
Dr. Izuogu reluctantly agreed, though he wasn’t happy that the
benefits of employment generation will be lost on the ocals of Naze and the Nigerian human resources environment.
On Saturday, the 11th of March 2006, at about 2.00 a.m, a total of about 12 heavily armed men broke into
Dr. Izogu’s factory in Naze and carted away various machines and tools
including the design history notebook of Z-600, the design file Z-MASS,
containing the design history for mass production of Z-600 car, and the moulds
for various parts of the car. According to Dr. Izogu:
It seems that the target
of this robbery is to stop the efforts we are making to mass-produce the first
ever locally made car in Africa. Other items stolen included locally produced timing
wheel, locally produced camshaft, locally produced crankshaft, locally produced engine tappets, all 20 pieces each.
Also stolen were ten pieces of locally produced Z-600 engine
blocks, ten pieces of locally produced pistons, four pieces of engine block
mounds, four pieces of top engine block moulds, ten pieces of engine fly wheel
and two pieces each of rear car and front mudguard moulds.
The inventor regretted
that not only did they lose over one N1 billion in monetary terms, but also
time (about 10 years) and the energy it took to design and produce the moulds.
To worsen the matter, our design notebook was also stolen,” he stated. He
regarded the incident as a national economic disaster because the nation had
lost a technological and intellectual property. This Press was quiet about this
story. The set back and governments attitude frustrated Izuogu and his dream died
Written And Edited Christian Rowland,
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NIGERIA DREAM KILLERS!!! THE FULL STORY ON HOW THE NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT KILLED THE 1ST CAR COMPANY LOCALLY PRODUCED BY DR.IZUOGU,AN IGBO MAN... SEE
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