 Thank you for staying with us. You're still watching the breakfast on plus TV Africa It's time for a hot topic and this is a statement that says a Nigeria not ready for electric of vehicles And that's the auto gig CEO joining us to have a conversation is Frank. Eleanor. He's an economic analyst and senior writer with Tech cabal. Good morning, Frank. Thank you for joining us Thank you for having me always a pleasure to be here. Welcome. You're welcome Okay, so we're talking about electric cars or electric vehicles, right? There was a point where the president came up and said, you know, they were going to bring about a hundred bosses a hundred electric bosses, especially in the time of cop 28, right and We've not seen those buses yet. However, the CEO of auto gig is saying we're not even ready for that What do you think about the statement? Let's start with that Okay, so I think what he's saying is Looking at the industry from a holistic view if you if you just isolate and say The electric vehicle as a can we do electric vehicle and Nigeria do electric vehicle really the answer will be Not so we're not so prepared for electric vehicle I mean given the kind of Infrastructure that is needed to build that space at the moment They're not readily available over some companies like Wando and some others are beginning to build Some sketchy infrastructure here and there as they're putting up Charging centers they're putting up some some repair Centers where, you know, you have a problem with electric vehicle. You can go there, you know, but those Like a drop in the water for what an electric vehicle industry actually requires what the CEO of auto gig is Referring to is that if you look at the automotive industry as a whole We aren't doing Very well in that in that space when we're not utilizing the opportunities that that space Forged us nearly 90 as I'm saying 90 percent of vehicles on our roads today Imported whether they're important new whether they're imported as to kumball vehicles Accidented vehicles, you know, just it's I'm like a few Like I think around 2022. It was Be then former president the Mio Sivan Joe that said that For my vice president Frank we seem to have lost your audio. I don't know if you can hear us at this point But electric vehicles That's the way the future is going and I don't know what we're doing about it because if Frank comes back I'm going to ask him if he's comfortable with the booths at all At all by the authority to make sure that when that future arrives We will not be found wanting about two years ago in the national demand Hello, Frank. Yes I'm back She'll be at Electric vehicles base at the moment. I'm one of those that say that it's not just about, you know, let's go and import Bosses and all of that. We need to have a stick on the table in the electric vehicle Hello, Frank purchase of because to buy a little very echo is is not It's not beans. I mean, it is it is very expensive and it's more expensive than, you know, your normal ice vehicle that's a Cross a few car, you know, so What we should be looking at is is a holistic approach How do how do we deal with the issues that the automotive industry has currently in terms of policies? Creating the right policies creating the enabling environment for those who are actually in the business, you know to try I Think that's what he's talking about. It's not that if we want to import electric vehicles that we can import them We can import them. We import them with what electricity? I Are you going to run them if they develop a we have the personnel that has the expertise to To repair electric vehicles at the moment, I don't think the answer is very very It's a big yes. It's not we still need to train people to to learn how to cop lack of capacity that we need to address before Before we satisfy ourselves ready for this market Okay. All right, so let's just talk about the the Tobol industry That we are currently in and you know yet highlighted the fact that 90% of the cars on our roads are imported in fact most of the vehicles that we see not just cars the Kekena pep, I don't think we create or we manufacture any of that in Nigeria So most of all of these things are being imported Do you think that we're not leveraging on because there's some made in Nigeria cars, right? There are some companies who come maybe maybe they don't maybe they don't have like a hundred percent of the parts Made in Nigeria, maybe they import some of them and then they couple them here But there's some that still we know that we have the potentials for this Do you think that you know the policies we have in Nigeria don't even Allow us to leverage on the potentials that we have so their policies for instance whereby If you have to even import something it's ridiculously expensive. Absolutely. I think yes Yes, go ahead. Absolutely. I think that the policies that we have are very deficient in terms of addressing the issues that the industry has that for instance, if you're And let's look at it even to import to import the vehicle you have to deal with issues around ship shipping Those vehicles now when you ship them and it gets to Nigeria when you ship them and it gets to Nigeria the next thing you're dealing with is customs clearance duty the customs clearance duty over the past nine months have increased like significantly and from from say 460 460 Naira exchange to 1620 something Naira As are today, you know now if you are if you're bringing in those Pay parts into the country, you know, you know that you have to put in those costs Into whatever it is that you are Going to eventually Do with them, you know, and eventually when you get it to the final consumers They will have to pay premium because you discussed As that you eventually have to sell it. So first of all, can we address those issues? From from from a policy angle, you know Then We didn't look at the value chain That's also what they ought the auto giga CEO was talking about looking at the value chain of the automotive Industry there are speckles actually that are produced here in Nigeria. I mean, I want to say produce I mean a hundred percent actually produce. Yes small the little So some very little Speppers that you can get here in Nigeria and that's also why it's easy for some of these guys who are Coupling them here in this country to bring in some local elements into into those vehicles That's what we need to encourage. We need to encourage more plants. We need to encourage more people with creative abilities to set up Such innovative senders we car and said, okay, we can be manufacturing Maybe the door of the car we can look at my passion the light We can look at manufacturing. So there's people that you can do but then it still goes down to what policies that you're creating you have to have an enabling environment and there has to be a co a cohesion or Integration or an understanding between the federal government and the state government and also the local government, you know Because even after the local even after the federal government after their own taxes, the state government has this separate tax The local government will come with their own separate taxes And all of them forgetting the fact that if you overtax these businesses the jobs will not be created and of course the production that you need to build a Healthy economy would not Not be done, you know, so that has to be some Understanding a handshake between all of these years of government in terms of taxation and There might be some need, you know to to declare some tax holidays, you know in some certain aspects in the in the production activities just so that you galvanize also that you In courage in courage operators in the industry to continue to produce we need we can produce our vehicles It'll say see 70 percent. We can actually have a target We can give us a target and say can we between this period and and and the next period Grow our local content in vehicles to 70 percent right now, maybe it's a 30 percent Maybe it's a 20 percent look at what innocent and Maybe not are doing push you, you know, what are they doing? You go that's a how How many local content do you have in this vehicle then if they say it's 40 percent they you tell them What can I do to help you get it to say 70 percent? You can't have you can't have a car that is entirely made in a particular country even in the u.s Is not done, you know, so they have to import some some parts from China They have to import from maybe from Germany from the UK the same with the UK the same with Germany, you know So all these places even in Japan, you know, so that places where you have to get it because they have better capacity to produce those parts that you need and You can then import them into your country. I need it to couple your vehicles, you know, but to say that we Imports over Over 80 percent of our vehicles from outside isn't Helping our economy. We need to help local guys. We need to and then aside from just helping them There has to be an intentional patronage of these vehicles of these local vehicles Yeah, the federal government over time has a you know, I'm played some significant role in patronizing Companies like a innocent and not, you know, but it needs to be more intentional What what will happen if the president's official vehicle is produced by innocent or maybe not of Or by my pity. Oh, no, they would rather go for a hundred and sixty million No, they don't want that. Yeah How do you think that this patronage will come when obviously they say they're looking for the name? Because that's what one of the excuses they gave that, you know, we have to go for a Brand that has a name. I see Person is not a name. I think Nigeria is not a name. Also my fear My fear Frank is also that about two years ago someone in the National Assembly and I I'm saying this because they did not stand up to say shut up Because we should have said that somebody in the National Assembly said because we produce fuel We should not even be talking about electric cars So you do you see a political will do you see a possibility that even the right legislation? Will be gotten to make sure that we are not found wanting when that time that we need all these electric cars come I Think that discussion is Is it normal thing? for In some political space the way they talk about things like that. It's the same way when you want to talk about having say renewable energies or solar power Becoming ubiquitous across the country somebody will say oh what happened to those who are selling generators, you know And you know so all those kind of discussions, you know Sometimes it boils down to maybe their level of understanding their level of education, you know When you talk about Force of pure cars and electric vehicles. Yeah The discussion has always been about climate change or maybe Improving the environment But for me, I just feel like it is more about Giving the consumers options, you know viable options If electric vehicles works for you if it is cheaper if using cheaper alternative Why not the electric vehicles the experience only comes when you buy the car But over over the period of time if the if all of if all other conditions are stable maintenance of electric vehicles are always cheaper than Than ice, you know, so That's a given so I think we've lost his audio again Yeah, well, but he said it's a normal thing for people to say we don't want it especially Or to express fear that what happens to XYZ But I don't see a reason why Nigeria should be worried if we're going to solar for instance that vehicles now that use solar I would've seen Someone who's fabricating these vehicles in Bono state Nigeria. Why can't government or or relevant authorities? make some laws make some some the situation so so Conducing for people who are as creative as innovative as this if you can convert your vehicle to Solar-powered vehicle at least where we're sure that it can run in the in the daylight and we have sufficient sun in this place We don't need to buy it Why can't we think about our people instead of thinking about what can come to the country if we don't make money from oil today? And the people are comfortable with whatever they are doing or having then we will not have a problem We lost your audio at some point. Please Scott go ahead. Sorry. Yeah, so The whole the entire idea is Let's let's let's think about the consumers first. Let's get them Let's get them moving and then like I was saying before We have some capacities in the mineral resources that are used to produce electric vehicles Take for instance lithium or okay, which is used for and batteries right now. You have mining of lithium Lithium going on in some states in the North Nassau for instance and And in some of those states you have them Becoming one of the issues or contentious issues that are making people lose their lives, you know And that's because of the fact that There is no proper governance to the mining of these mineral resources and because of also they don't understand the potential of Of those mineral resources and how impactful it can help them develop their own states and also to The larger country, you know, there has to be some intentional Decisions that need to be made About how we Um govern our minerals. How do we Use them to attract investors into the country we if we govern them properly if we create the right policies Companies from china tesla All of them that are now at the forefront of electric vehicle industry And decide, okay, we can have a plant here in Nigeria where we can be mining this This mineral or we can even have that plant and also be producing some aspect of these Batteries which will even make it cheaper for us here in the market, you know, and That's we're able to develop our own industry And run at the pace that the world is running so that we don't wake up in 20 30 And then we start all of us that are thinking. Oh, yeah, the world is now on And the electric vehicles don't go on a bike by electric vehicle. It's power issues around power That's no point talking about electric vehicles. Kenya, for instance, is is Africa's like the largest currently the largest User of electric vehicles right now. They have the largest Is like 70 percent of what supplies electricity to the country You know, so they're utilizing renewable energies solar wind whatever that they they can lay their hands on Why can't we do that? We've got all the natural resources that we need. We've got the abundance of sun We've got abundance of wind everything, you know Why can't we just be intentional about growing the power sector when we grow it is easy for investors to stay Let us now come into this country and start building plans for electric vehicles to be manufactured here Because we need to have a seat on the table. It's not just about importing it Or importing the components or the parts know that we need to start thinking about less Start manufacturing some of those parts of this electric vehicles Even if we don't eventually stop, you know, let's have the parts come from Nigeria If you've got the mineral resources, let's take advantage of it. That's what we're talking about That's how to grow the economy So since you talked about growing the power sector, how do you what are your recommendations? How do you think we can start to grow the power sector? I'm sure some people would say that all we have to do is make sure that we prioritize it and look at the telcos for instance The moment we had more players in the system, obviously there was more power more Companies coming in the prices drop and if we do that with the with the power sector as well It might just benefit us as a nation. So if you're talking about growing the power sector, what would be your recommendations? You should stop playing politics with it the other day. I saw that the president's main appointment in the rural education That's a ru e a e yes And the chairman currently is a ganbuj. That for me is absolutely Ridiculous it's shocking It's it doesn't make sense Who is the minister of of power in his state's? Politicking then he does actually um In the ministry You can't play politics with critical sectors like that. You need to give it to people who know their job who Know what that um sector is about number one? If you don't lead a foundation everything you're doing is just is is just nonsense. It's all gonna work You know, so First of all puts the right people Requires let them clean up your brother and heads in in that position. They now get They'll bring you the vision to bring you the plans and you'll see them And I will allow them the latitude to work That's for me as in that's number one because I have as in I'm still in shock that somebody like ganbuj Is is has something to do with arrow as in rural electrification. I don't know how that happened Okay, um the network is a bit Funny and it's been fluctuating, but we can't we can't even blame frank. I mean we see what has happened with the What's a cable right So Or it is we don't like what you're doing to us No, because we need technology We need you know, we need the the Cables to work so that's I mean the telcos can now do their job and we on the other hand we can do you can see how everything is connected, right? So they they they they're saying that um everything is now correct that uh, the problem has gone I don't know We're talking earlier You say on the one hand that the problems are solved and on the other hand You say it will take a week or two or three weeks, you know We don't even understand a total of five weeks because they said repairs should take about one to two weeks And then having to test and make sure everything is going well. That's another two to three weeks So are we going to be doing this for the next five weeks? I hope not I hope not. I hope not. Yeah, but maybe this is a good way to just draw the cotton for right Right, right. So we wrap it up on the show today. It's been lovely having a breakfast with you My name is rome paulton. We'll see you again tomorrow. And my name is nyamgul agaji. Have a wonderful day. Bye