Thursday 21 April 2016

UNIZIK students make mini bus from local material

UNIZIK students make mini bus from local
material


Change call for innovation, and innovation leads
to progress - Li Keqiang, Chinese politician.
The time for Nigeria to look inwards is now. We
have all the resources, both human and material,
to be great.
To ensure that Nigeria is counted among
automobile manufacturers in the world, an
industrialist, Mr. Innocent Chukwuma, chairman
of Innoson Group of Companies, took a bold step
by investing in the Automobile sector. The
Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing (IVM) Company
has made Nigeria proud.
Today, they design and manufacture Hummer
buses, Waste vans, Luxury buses, Hilux vans,
Saloon cars, Jeeps and so on in Nigeria and by
Nigerians.
Engineering students
Following in Innoson’s footsteps, seven final-year
engineering students of Nnamdi Azikiwe
University, Awka, Anambra State, designed and
constructed a mini bus from scratch with locally
sourced materials made specially to suit
Nigeria’s topography and climatic condition.
“The bus was constructed from start to finish at
the University’s workshop, using all necessary
design software and Computer-Aided Design
(CAD) tools. We constructed the chassis, down
to every single part of the mini bus,” said
Callistus Ezeigwe, one of the seven.
The group, known as the Autozik Group, was
made up of six males and a female including
Callistus Ezeigwe, Victor Obinani, Ifeanyi
Ezeanolue, Ogbu Ikenna, Fidelis Ominigbo,
Nnamdi Nwobodo and Chinaza Okoro, was
supervised by the then Head of Mechanical
Engineering Department, Dr. C.H. Achebe.
“We made the mini bus using mere hand tools.
This means we did all of the constructions and
folding, with our hands, since the university could
not provide us with ground equipment, as used in
most automobile companies,” said Ezeugwu.
The mini bus which took about five months to
complete, has a beautiful finishing so that people
find it difficult to believe it was made in Nigeria.
Ezeigwe said the aim was to construct a mini
bus using locally sourced materials, which is
more durable and can better stand the test of
time, compared to other brands out there.
“We named it Autobully ,” said Obinani Victor,
explaining that the brand name, coined from the
normal bullion van, fits the shape of the mini
bus.
The challenge: There is no doubt that Nigeria has
talents but the challenge is how to tap harness
them for the good of the nation. These youths
have been able to achieve this feat with no help
from expatriates. They have shown some sense
of doggedness and proficiency and they must
not be allowed to be swept away by the tide of
brain drain.
Also in the same institution, five final-year
engineering students produced a Formula 1 car
(Racing car).
They appealed to the government to invest in
these youths and channel resources to the
Automobile sector as they seek to diversify the
economy. They also appealed to the public to
buy made in Nigeria products to grow the Naira.

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