By Favour Nnabugwu

Apparently preparing mechanics across the country on how to repair and fix modern day vehicles, the National Automotive Council, NAC has trained 1,000 mechanics selected from the six-geo political zones.

The NAC DG, said that the training of the 1,000 mechanics were solely sponsored by Subsidy Reinvestment & Empowerment Programme under its Technical Vocational Education & Training Project, SURE-P TVET in collaboration with NAC and the Small & Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria, SMEDAN, will have the 1,000 mechanics go through three weeks intense training on specialized fields.

Director General,  National Automotive Council (NAC),  Engineer Aminu Jalal, said in Abuja recently that the training of the auto mechanics became imperative following a survey carried out by the agency which exposed lack of knowledge of mechatronics systems in general and skill deficiencies of the mechanics.

According to him, “The training of the 1,000 mechanics is therefore part of our ongoing efforts aimed at providing solutions to the service and maintenance problems of high technology motor vehicles through the production of competent craftsmen and women who will be enterprising and self-reliant”.

He said over two million Nigerian  auto mechanics might just be thrown into the labour market,  if the council do not carry out its mandate to upgrade and update  the mechanics on the type of vehicles that are in invoke due to global rapid development in technology.

The emerging  crop of vehicles  imported into the country are made of highly sophisticated combination of mechanical and electronics parts, which the average roadside mechanics do not understand, he said.

“Their knowledge of most new systems in modern vehicles are  generally low, while their inability to read  and interpret electronic circuit diagrams is also a big problem,” he said, adding that  all  these factors combined  are capable of throwing the mechanics into the job market.

Jalal said this at the Critique Workshop session on a Curriculum for Automotive Mechatronics,  funded by the SURE-P VET in collaboration with NAC and SMEDAN was geRed towards ensuring the the country’s mechanics are in tune with repairs ANSI services of modern day vehicles.

He acknowledged the deficiencies as the major reasons why NAC, together with other stakeholders, have decided to develop a training programme for mechatronics,  designed to remedy these deficiencies and expressed regrets that the training of Nigerian Mechanics have not kept pace with developments in the automotive industry.

According to him, “our mechanics  cannot repair many of the vehicles plying the Nigerian roads today,” and acknowledged the fact that standard workshops that can repair new generation vehicles are few and far between.

He added that many people whose vehicles develop even minor problems are therefore, forced to tow them to long distances to workshops that can repair them.

Jalal said  NAC has been in the business of continuous support to members mechanics especially since 2006.