Most Nigerian mechanics are out of date – Shonaike.
Business news.
The Chief Executive Officer, Automedics, an automotive engineering firm, Mr. Kunle Shonaike, in this interview with Okechukwu Nnodim, speaks on why automobile mechanics in Nigeria cannot compete favourably with their counterparts globally
People complain that many mechanics are not qualified in this country, what would you say about this?
What I have noticed in the field is the
lack of education. What I mean is that before the advent of the
Internet or information technology, most of these guys (mechanics) were
used to the old ways of doing things. And this is because most of the
vehicles that were running then hadn’t much technology involved when
manufactured. But these days, there are so many technologies involved in
the vehicles we drive. The vehicles we drive, right from 1995 are
computerised and we are getting more computerised vehicles in the
market. So what we drive today are more or less computers on wheels.
We’ve found out that most mechanics are
still in the 70s in terms of what they know. These are some of the
challenges, and in the process they do a lot of guess work. By so doing,
they damage the vehicle more. We will want to correct that in any way
we can, and this will benefit the mechanics, the car owners and the
entire society.
Is there a way in which the government can support engineers in the automotive sector?
There are so many ways, but one thing we
realise is that if you wait for government in Nigeria, I don’t care if
it is federal or state, you may not make the necessary headway. This is
because the people in charge of those organisations, what they think
about is how to make money for themselves. There are so many things that
we’ve done that we tried with the government but they failed.
So we don’t wait for the government and
that is the challenge many mechanics are facing. Some of these guys are
being used by the government after it has promised to train them in one
skill or the other. We’ve realised that government use them as a conduit
to make money and that is why we don’t wait for government again. We
would love it if the government would come in, but I don’t really want
to talk about them because it’s annoying what they do.
We can produce our cars here in Nigeria
if we get the required support from government. For example, we blame
those from the east that they make fake parts, but for me I don’t call
it fake. I call it substandard. If the government will come in and aid
them in acquiring the right materials and the right tools to do these
things, we can make things that will stand with any other spare parts
from any parts of the world.
Are you saying Nigeria has enough expertise to manufacture vehicle parts?
From my experience in dealing with some
of our guys as the CEO of Automedics, I have realised that most young
engineers who studied mechanical engineering in universities have this
mind and brain to do these things. But they don’t have the wherewithal.
These are the kind of people we are encouraging and we support them in
any way we can financially.
The truth is that we can’t do it all
ourselves. So if the government will come in then we will make some good
progress. But the problem is just that when they come in, the challenge
we face is ‘what’s in it for me?’ If we can move past that mentality
and associate our names with the development of a project, then our
names will be in history. And at the same time you will still make
money. There are so many things we can do in this country and I believe
we have the expertise.
What brought about your company’s visit to Abuja?
We run a free seminar on automotive
engineering quarterly because what we figured out in Nigeria is that
information dissemination is a bit poor. This is because a lot of people
hoard information and it is not helping the society. With me and my
team sitting together, we told ourselves that we cannot work on all the
vehicles in Lagos, not to talk of working on all vehicles in Nigeria. So
we need to be able to pass this information around so that others can
ultimately benefit from it.
The belief most of us, Nigerians, have
is that when I hold on to certain information I make more money for
myself. But we fail to realise that in the process of trying to do that
you may kill yourself, because you can’t do everything by yourself. And
when you pass down this information it helps. In fact some of these
people will still come to you for other things that you can even make
money from. So we’ve found out that passing information across has
helped a lot.
How many states have you covered since you started the automotive seminar?
Abuja is the second location in terms of
states that we’ve covered. We started in Lagos and the reason why this
is so is because of the financial constraints, for we carry all the
expenses. The reason why we do this training is because of the passion
and the legacy we want to leave in terms of how we impact the society
with our knowledge.
By coming back to my people in Nigeria I
should be able to say this is what I did for my society to better the
lives of the people here. There are other people that are helping out in
this course too. We are more or less apostles of automotive for we are
trying to change the industry. So that when it comes to automotive,
Nigeria will be a country to reckon with.
Tell us a little about yourself and what motivated you into becoming an automotive engineer?
I am an automotive engineer and I
started the trade in 1975 and had the opportunity of travelling out of
the country. I actually wanted to start as a computer information
technologist, which was what I went to study. But while I was in
England, I realised that that was not really what I wanted to do and
that I had a passion for automotive.
While some of my mates were working in
different places, I decided to work as a mechanic in front of my flat
and that was what gave me my sustenance. So I enrolled in one of the
colleges in England and I was there for about two years before I moved
to California, United States. I went to college thereafter, sponsored by
Caterpillar to study hydraulic, diesel and automotive engineering. I’ve
been doing automotive works since then. I relocated to Nigeria in 2005.
source Punch.
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