The Vice-Chancellor, National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), Prof. Olufemi Peters, has said the university can serve as a focal point for Electric Vehicles in Nigeria at a technical and vocational levels.
He said in the near future, major automobile companies will start bringing in electric vehicles as there will be a need to have people that will be maintaining them.
He stated this at his office when an electric motor company paid him a courtesy call to redeem the pledge the company made some months ago.
Peters said the collaboration between the university and the company will be a welcome development for the future.
In his speech, the CEO of the Electric Motor Company, Prince Mustapha Audu, himself and his team have come to redeem the pledge they made to donate some vehicles to NOUN.
'' We actually pledged to donate two. We have one here and we will donate the second one within the next week once the batteries arrive.
" Unfortunately we do not produce the batteries locally," he said.
Audu said for them electric vehicles are not just a passion. "We understand that it is the future of transportation. it's the same way that cassette taps were popular, but the world has moved on; the same way the world will move away from patrol and combustion engine vehicles including CNG."
The CEO said the world has decided that by 2030 there will be no more production of CNG vehicles.
"It means that anybody that takes the lead today becomes the forefront of the technology," Audu said.
He said his company is building the capacity of young Nigerians, positioning them to be number one, not just in Nigeria, but Africa to be able to provide this technology.
"And if you look at everything involved, the cost of procurement of new vehicles, electric vehicles are much cheaper. Cost of operations, they are much cheaper.
This technology will change the future. If you look at pollution and emissions, 70% of the emissions today in the African continent are from the transportation sector, electric vehicles will put an end to this," he added.
The CEO explained that the primary focus of their visit was to establish a partnership to advance electric vehicle education and infrastructure within Nigeria, leveraging NOUN's widespread reach.
Earlier, the Director of Centre for Human Resource Development, National Open University of Nigeria, Prof. Aminu Umar, said when he visited Electric Motor Vehicle Company he was amazed by what he saw, as so many young Nigerians were doing technical works at very young ages.
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