Car Talk
Yakubu Gowon Commissioned N11.5m Volkswagen Plant in Lagos (Video, Photos)
A throwback video released by Uzo Nwachukwu has surfaced online, according to Uzo, Gen Yakubu Gowon was the special guest of honour who commissioned the Volkswagen plant in Lagos, Nigeria.
The plant is the second one owned by the firm after the one in Kaduna.
The Volkswagen plant as the time of opening in 1975 was expected to have an initial production rate of 60 cars per day.
Yakubu Gowon while appreciating the firm for the plant, urged Nigerians to develop pride in patronizing locally-produced items. This he said would enable local market potential to develop to its maximum potentials.
The plant was stationed in Ojo on the Lagos-Badagry Expressway in Lagos, the plant was established with N11.5million in 1975.
The Peugeot plant project was a joint venture between the Federal Government of Nigeria, the Lagos State Government and some West German investors in the country.
The plant later went moribund in the mid-90s due to low patronage, government policies among other factors.
It will be recalled that 2015, Volkswagen Automobile Group reopened its auto assembly factory on the Badagry Expressway, Lagos, after 20 years of suspending operations in the country.
According to the German automaker, the reopening was made possible through its partnership agreement with a private auto company, the Stallion Group for the assembly of the Volkswagen brand of vehicles in the country in line with the National Automotive Industrial Plan announced by the federal government in October 2013.
Sunil Vaswani, chairman of Stallion Group, disclosed that the group acquired the moribund Volkswagen of Nigeria plant, resuscitated it and commenced the assembling of buses, trucks, pick-ups and passenger vehicles at the facility.
Watch the video below…
