Osanipin lauds Lanre Shittu Motors’ CNG drive, human capital development

Joseph Osanipin, director-general of the National Automotive Design and Development Council (NADDC), has commended the management of the Lanre Shittu for its investment in driving the compressed natural gas (CNG)-powered vehicles in its auto assembly plant and development of human capital.

He also commended the auto company for focusing on the assembling of commercial vehicles especially trucks, pickups and compressed natural gas (CNG)-powered vehicles.

The DG made the commendation after inspecting the LSM auto assembly plant in Lagos where he was taken through the process of putting the JAC truck components together and the conversion of pickups to run on CNG.

“I’m impressed because Lanre Shittu Motors has picked where its strength is – the pickups and trucks. We have seen the training facility and capacity for human capital development. We also saw the spare parts, which means they are ready to support their vehicles with sufficient parts when the need arises.

“We have seen the capacity and ability to meet the demand of the market and I’m not surprised because Lanre Shittu Motors has been there for years. About 95 percent of the workers engaged at both truck and pickup sections of the plant are Nigerians,” he said.

On the readiness of industry for the CNG-powered vehicles, he said the LSM has shown that assemblers are ready for the CNG vehicle initiative.

He urged Nigerians to embrace the initiative because of its cost-effectiveness.

“Again, looking at the safety measures in place at the LSM assembling plant, it shows we are ready for CNG. The next set of conversions to be done here will be the trucks,” he said.

Also speaking, Taiwo Shittu, managing director of Lanre Shittu Motors, said the company had delivered some CNG-powered mass transit buses as airport shuttles.

He disclosed that the plant can convert six units of vehicles daily and that they saw the business opportunity in the CNG-powered vehicles shortly after the removal of fuel subsidy by the Federal Government and went straight into it.

“We know from our knowledge of automobile –this is our 43 years in the industry – that once the fuel subsidy is removed, the next option is the CNG. So, we went straight into the conversion of CNG vehicles.

“As we speak, we are converting our vehicles to run on CNG. We have our CNG conversion kits on the ground. We have mass transit buses already at the airports for shuttle, assembled here in Nigeria,” he said.

According to him, another set of CNG mass transit buses arrived at the seaport and are being cleared before they will be assembled for commercial use.

He said injecting the buses into the transportation system will reduce operation costs by 25 percent.

Shittu said LSM placed a premium on after-sale support, with over N2 billion worth of spare parts in its store.

“For any vehicle or auto brand to survive in Nigeria, after-sale support is very important. We have been the sole distributor of MAN and JAC in Nigeria. We discovered that a lot of made-in-Nigeria vehicle manufacturers failed in the past because of insufficient spare parts,” he said.