The Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide extols Professor Charles Soludo on the far-reaching policy statement that Innoson vehicle will be his official car while in Office as the governor of Anambra State. The Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing Co. Ltd (IVM) is a Nigerian automobile manufacturer based in Nnewi, Anambra State, Nigeria.
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The IVM was founded by an Igbo entrepreneur, Chief Innocent Chukwuma. The Innoson vehicles, also known as the Pride of African Road, have gained wide market and acceptability, especially in African countries, namely; Mali, Sierra Leone, Ghana, etc. In July 2017, the Malian government placed an order for 400 Innoson vehicles and they were duly supplied. Also, in August 2020, the Sierra Leone government placed an order to the IVM worth of over $4.7million and were delivered. A lot of other transactions with IVM by African countries are replete.
It is therefore morally reprehensible and indeed the worst form of imperialism for Nigerian governments at all levels to prefer and patronize foreign companies as against the locally manufactured goods. For instance, while other African countries patronize IVM, the Nigerian Lawmakers in 2019, placed an order for Japanese cars valued over N5.5 Billion. On the other hand, the aggregate expenditure on foreign cars by all the levels of Nigerian government is over 200 Billion per annum.
Ohanaeze Ndigbo posits on a firm wicket that when the volume of import into a country far exceed its exports, the balance of trade is distorted and the value of its currency severely threatened. The self-induced imperialism and mass poverty by the Nigerian leadership takes various forms: most people in government own buildings in the USA, UK, Germany, France, etc, and their children attend schools in foreign countries; the fuel for cars, gas for bigger machines, including kerosene; health care, etc are sourced from foreign countries. In fact, almost everything which can be sourced within are imported without corresponding effort for meaningful exports. This obnoxious self-inflicted injury has already thrown Nigeria into the poverty capital of the world and fragile states index status; and counting.
Ohanaeze Ndigbo had in October 2019 urged the Buhari-led Federal Government and other State Governments to patronize locally manufactured goods. It is heartwarming that Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, in one day, procured 100 Innoson Hilux vans for security operatives in Enugu State. A visit to Ebonyi State also shows that the traditional rulers of the State use the IVM brand, courtesy of Governor Dave Umahi. The Imo State government, led by Senator Hope Uzodimma is not left out in promoting the IVM, with over 100 vans and several trucks; and more. Elementary economics informs that the more we promote our locally manufactured goods, the more the employment opportunities for our teeming population and the better the indices of economic growth.
Ohanaeze Ndigbo led by Ambassador Professor George Obiozor in a congratulatory message to Professor Soludo after his emergence as the governor elect of Anambra State had prophetically enthused “the age-long strategic place of Anambra State in Igbo Land and hopes that his sterling pedigree will add extra-ordinary value to social economics of the State and the entire Igbo Land”
Soludo, has by the robust steps he has taken so far, proved beyond doubt that he is an experienced development economist and a scholar of world renown. Professor Chinua Achebe had long lamented that the problem of Nigeria is leadership. The implication of the Achebe lodestar is that if President Muhammadu Buhari, 36 State Governors, National Assembly Members, Ministers, etc adopt the Soludo Model by patronizing the local goods and services including Medicare, schools, cars, foods, etc, the regrettable tailspin of Nigerian economy, perhaps, may be reversed. Evidently, Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson in Why Nations Fail had Nigeria in mind when they stated that poor countries are poor, because the authorities make choices that create poverty.
Chiedozie Alex Ogbonnia,
National Publicity Secretary, Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide.
