UNIZIK Students Build Mini Bus From Local Materials

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, Innocent Chukwuma, chairman of Innoson Motors, took a bold step by investing in the Automobile sector. The Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing (IVM) Company has made Nigeria proud.

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.

According to Vanguard, 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.

These young men have shown some sense of doggedness and proficiency and they must not be allowed to be swept away by the tide of brain drain.