By Victor Nwegede, Abakaliki.
Governor Francis Nwifuru of Ebonyi State on Friday wooed automobile manufacturers, investors and indigenous entrepreneurs to the state, pledging an enabling environment for technology transfer, local capacity development and sustainable job creation.
Nwifuru made the call at the formal commissioning of the National Automotive Design and Development Council’s Automotive Training Centre on Ogoja Road, Abakaliki, described by the Council as the first NADDC automotive training centre to be commissioned in the South-East.
The governor said the facility marked a significant step in Ebonyi’s industrialisation drive, stressing that it was designed not merely to train automobile mechanics but to develop a new generation of technicians, engineers, innovators and entrepreneurs capable of driving the state’s emerging industrial economy.
“For us, this Centre is not an extension of the regular mechanic site just down there; it is an investment in the future in the automotive technology context,” Nwifuru said.
He said the project represented a practical convergence of the Federal Government’s Renewed Hope Agenda and his administration’s People’s Charter of Needs, particularly in the areas of human-capital development, technical education, technology and productive enterprise.
Nwifuru urged Ebonyi youths to take advantage of the facility and discard the perception that technical education was inferior to conventional academic education.
“Technical knowledge is not inferior knowledge,” he said, noting that properly trained automobile technicians could become entrepreneurs, while automotive engineers and fabricators could establish businesses, develop components and create employment.
The governor also invited investors in automotive services, component manufacturing, fabrication, vehicle maintenance, diagnostics, electric mobility and technical education to establish businesses in the state.
He said his administration would continue to provide the necessary environment for responsible investments that would transfer technology, develop local skills and contribute to the productive transformation of the state’s economy.
The Minister of State for Industry, Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, Senator John Owan Enoh, said the commissioning reflected the commitment of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration to skills development, human-capital development and industrialisation.
Enoh, who said the Ebonyi centre was the first NADDC facility he had commissioned in the South-East, identified skills development as one of the major requirements for industrial growth.
He said the rapid emergence of technologies such as electric vehicles and advanced energy-management systems required corresponding investment in technical training.
The minister described Ebonyi as a state with strong entrepreneurial potential, urging youths not to focus solely on seeking employment but acquire skills that could enable them to become employers of labour.
The NADDC Director-General and Chief Executive Officer, Oluwemimo Joseph Osanipin, said the centre was established to provide practical, industry-relevant training for youths, technicians, artisans, students, entrepreneurs and other automotive practitioners in Ebonyi and the South-East.
Osanipin said the facility was equipped with modern training tools and designed to support skills acquisition, technical innovation, entrepreneurship, technology transfer and workforce development.
He disclosed that NADDC was working towards introducing graded automotive certification from Level One to Level Nine under Nigeria’s skills qualification framework.
According to him, the training would cover emerging technologies, including compressed natural gas, electric vehicles, automotive mechatronics and electronic diagnostics.
Osanipin said the centre would serve as a regional hub for developing the skilled manpower required to support Nigeria’s evolving automotive industry and broader industrialisation agenda.
He, however, appealed to the state government to assist in restoring electricity to the centre after its transformer was vandalised, stressing that uninterrupted power supply was critical to the operation of the specialised equipment.
Chairman of the NADDC Governing Board, Chief Emma Eneukwu, commended the Federal and Ebonyi State governments for their collaboration, saying the facility demonstrated the Federal Government’s determination to extend development opportunities across the country.
Ebonyi State Commissioner for Human Capital Development and Monitoring, Chief Mrs Ann Aligwe, said the centre aligned with the state government’s human-capital development policy, stressing that sustainable empowerment required equipping citizens with skills that could make them self-reliant.
The commissioning attracted government officials, engineers, automobile technicians, industry stakeholders, traditional and political leaders, development partners and youths from across the state.
