Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing Company has sealed a deal with the federal government to take-up all automobile Research and Development (R&D’s) results at the National Agency for Science & Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI) and convert them to automobile products for commercialisation.
The agreement was signed in Abuja on Wednesday by top officials of the company and the agency.
The Executive Vice Chairman of NASENI, Professor Mohammed Sani Haruna who signed the agreement on behalf of the federal government said the dream of President Muhammadu Buhari to see that NASENI’S designs and technologies are transferable to the private sector has become a reality.
Haruna said: “The partnership between Innoson Motors and NASENI started in 2013 when NASENI produced and launched its first “Made in Nigeria Motorcycle (NASENI M1), but I am happier today that the deal to work together has been sealed”.
The NASENI chief executive officer said it was encouraging and patriotic for the Innoson Motors to believe in Nigeria and Nigerian engineers and their ingenuity.
He said “NASENI’s research outputs are numerous, but most Nigeria entrepreneurs are not interested in working with us, they prefer to bring in finished products from overseas thereby indirectly hampering the endogenous economic development of the country, Nigeria”
The CEO of Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing Ltd, Chief Innocent Chukwuma said NASENI had been doing a lot of things in the areas of Research and Development, but “Today we have commenced a partnership that will live forever.
“Both NASENI and Innoson Motors are passionate about lifting Nigeria out of economic woods, and with God on our side, we shall succeed together”.
He said with this collaboration, he believed that in no time, Nigeria will have a success story to tell in the production of automobile spares parts locally even to the extent of exports.