A research analysis recently gathered by the National Bureau of Statistics shows that Nigeria spent a whooping sum of ₦1.08 trillion on the importation of used ‘Tokunbo’ cars and Motorcycles popularly referred to as ‘Okada’ within a one year period.
Importation of these fairly used cars and motorcycles make up 7% of the country’s total import. It was gathered that to beat down freight charges, motorcycles come disassembled to be assembled later by the end-user. This would reduce the space occupied by the product than for it comes assembled.
While the fairly used motorcycles are imported from India and China, the used cars are imported from Italy, Germany, Belgium, the United States, and Canada.
One of the fast-growing industries in the country is the ride-hailing platform. The sprung of rides like Taxify now known as Bolt, Uber, Opay, GoKada and the rest is contributing to the face-paced development of ride-hailing platforms in commercial cities like Lagos, Ibadan admits several others.
Due to this, investors now invest their funds into the importation of these transportation items.
Although a whopping amount is spent on the importation, the upside is the employment opportunities provided for the unemployed citizens of the country.
Despite what seems like a good path for Nigeria’s automobile industry, the industry still remains at a standstill. The president in an attempt to up and boost the automobile industry tried to make Toyota car manufactures come into the country to invest in the automobile industry.
However, this plan most likely has no light at the end of its tunnel as Toyota car manufactures made known that they won’t be investing in the country’s automobile industry.
The country plans on importing SUV worth ₦5.5 billion.
