Oduwa Agbonesi is a female mechanic who is determined to reduce the increased rate of road accidents in Nigeria. Agbonesi, a graduate of Mechanical Engineering from the University of Benin is achieving this through her foundation known as Nenis Foundation, which focuses on creating awareness on vehicle preventive maintenance. Speaking in an interview with Ngozi Okpalakunne recently in Lagos, Agbonesi, who is also the CEO of Nenis Auto Care, maintained that if cars on Nigeria roads are in good condition, the rate of road accidents will drastically reduce. She also stressed the need for parents to encourage their girl-child to study Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) in school. Excerpts:
What is the relationship between auto care and the increased rate of road accidents in Nigeria?
l have been in the business of car maintenance since 2015; l developed interest in it because l realised that l have a role to play, especially in the auto mobile industry as a mechanical engineer.
In Nigeria today, we have over 11.654 million registered vehicles and an average of two persons lose their lives every four hours in a motor accident and what does that tell us? It means that there is an urgent need to create awareness on vehicle preventive maintenance. It is in this career that l discovered that a lot of Nigerians and corporate bodies do not take their vehicles to mechanic workshop for preventive maintenance until the vehicle is in bad condition. They will continue to manage the vehicles until accident occurs or the vehicle is about to pack up. Besides, most Nigerian drivers lack education on how to drive carefully and manage their vehicles and that is another factor that leads to road accident. So, in Nensi, we decided to be one of the most effective preventive vehicle maintenance centres in Nigeria, whereby we educate drivers on what it takes to drive carefully. We do this by employing women engineers, because women give attention to details. When you give a woman engineer your car to work on, she will ensure that your car is properly taken of.
But, I must commend the Lagos State government, the state has been doing fantastically well, since it started Vehicle Inspection Services, whereby they ascertain the health status of a vehicle before they issue vehicle licence. It is a right step in the right direction, but it is still a work in progress, we have so many cars in Lagos, if all those cars can actually find their way to inspection centres, we will not have weak vehicles on the road again. I think the state government has to open it up, they should not be the only one handling the vehicle inspection services, they can partner with auto mobile garages like us. The fact is that, if one maintains one’s vehicle properly, such car owner can use it for ten years without the vehicle developing problem. Also, vehicle manufacturers have come up with a scheduled maintenance and if car owners and drivers can strictly adhere to such instruction, the vehicle will hardly develop fault. By so doing, road accidents that occur due to poor vehicle maintenance will be reduced.
How would you describe Nigerians’ perception about women mechanic?
I think Nigeria is warming up to it, l must tell you the truth, it is beyond a gender thing, even some men still believe that a woman must not touch their cars, but they are gradually changing. Some are now giving their cars to women because women pay attention to details. If a woman is handling your car, you are quite sure that your vehicle will leave the workshop cleaner and properly tightened. They will ensure that the quality of job done is perfect and that is the competitive advantage women have over men in this industry.
How were you able to have breakthrough in the industry?
While growing up, l discovered that there is this stereotype that women should be in the house, taking care of the family, women are not good in mathematics; women should not be found in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. But those are societal belief, but the fact is that it has been able to shape the way people think and reason, but l decided to challenge the statuesque. Right from when l was in the secondary school, l got inspired by even an engineer. l have an uncle in my area, whenever there is no water in my community, we will all go to his house to fetch water. But a day came when l asked my mother the reason my uncle is the only one that provides water for the entire community whenever there is no water and she told me that he is doing that because he is an engineer. It was then l decided l was going to be an engineer; naturally, l like providing solution to problems. That my uncle was solving a problem, he was giving a community water, that was where l got my inspiration; that issue inspired me to go for engineering as a course. While in the university, we were few girls in the engineering department, but l took it upon myself and said that with few girls we can change it by encouraging young girls to study engineering.
So, because I want to provide solution to people’s problem like my uncle, l decided to study and practise engineering. There are some of my female friends that read engineering; not only mechanical and today they are not in engineering industry, some of them are in the banking industry while some have gone into teaching and other fields.
Since l started practising as a mechanical engineer some years ago, God has been helping me. l have a big dream and that is to ensure that Nenis Auto Care becomes the best in Nigeria. There have been challenges particularly in the area of funding, but l have been able to manage alongside running the business. l tried to seek for funds and have been able to get multiple grants from different organisations; l have been able to get entrepreneurship training, from different agencies and that has kept us going.
What do you think is responsible for the fewer number of women engineers in Nigeria?
It is perception, because when we were growing up, our parents will give our brothers toys that look like guns and machines while for the girls, they will give us dull baby toys and we will start making their hairs and clothes; that has really shaped what we like. And for us to make a change, parents should be giving the same toys they give to their male children to their female wards and not to encourage them to turn dull babies to beautiful ones. Besides, girls should be encouraged to study sciences in the school and they should be made to understand that science courses such as engineering are not only meant for men but also for women.
On the other hand, girls should love mathematics because most of them in primary and post primary schools run away from mathematics. The moment they hate mathematics believing that it is a difficult subject, they will hardly do well in other science subjects that will enable them to study engineering and other science related courses in the university.
