Cedric Masters Group Committed to Tinubu’s Pi-CNG Initiative, Says Ilekuba
Bennett Oghifo
The Chairman and Chief Executive of Cedric Masters Group, Amselm Ilekuba, has reiterated their commitment to convert internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles to run on Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), considered cheaper and cleaner.
Ilekuba stated that CNG is new in Nigeria, and that Cedric Masters Group was lucky to be among the first promoters of the Pi-CNG initiative of President Tinubu.
Ilekuba made this commitment when he received the Director General of the National Automotive Design and Development Council (NADDC), Joseph Osanipin, and his team on a facility tour of the upcoming local automobile assembly plant located along the Lekki-Ajah Expressway, Lagos, recently
The chairman said he would create huge employment for Nigerians with other positive spin-off effects and that he would generate other businesses, adding that, in collaboration with his technical team, transfer the CNG Conversion skill he acquired at the CNG Centre in Houston, Texas, to his technical team. “This is one of the core areas that will generate massive jobs for the people,” he said.
The NADDC DG, Joseph Osanipin, accompanied by the Director of Policy and Planning, Sani Musa, and other staff of the agency had on Monday this week embarked on a tour of some auto assembly plants in the South-west.
Cedric Masters Group is a conglomerate that is also into automobile and component parts. The company manufactures component parts from its facility in the South-east while for proximity and business expansion purposes, it is setting up its assembly plant in Lagos.
Cedric Autos got the assembly license with a clear mandate from the NADDC to start rolling out locally assembled vehicles from the plant within 18 months.
Ilekuba expressed delight over the visit by the auto assembly regulatory government agency, adding that the physical construction of the plant, the cable laying were in progress.
According to him, “I am happy that they have come today to see how far we have gone with the physical construction, the cable laying, the equipment and every other facility has started coming. What we are waiting for now is the installation of all this equipment by our foreign partners.”
The full set of state-of-the-art automobile assembly equipment to be installed are automatic assembly line, post floor plate car lift with Solenoid unlock, scissor lift, four post floor plate car lift for 4-wheel alignment, semi automatic tyre changer, wheel balancer, air conditioning handling system and screw air compressor complete set-split type.
Others are movable manual hydraulic jack, foldable shop crane, transmission jack, hand hydraulic table truck, mobile pneumatic oil filling machine, paint spray booth, rear axle distribution rack, cargo lift, component of rain test (water nozzle and booster pump) and forklift.
Meanwhile, Cedric Masters has started its staff recruitment and training processes in the past months with payment in preparation for an official roll-out of the brand to Nigerians very soon.
