The Minister for Regional Development (REDM), Hon. Abubakar Momoh, has inspected an electric vehicle assembly plant in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, for inauguration this year by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

He said the plant has the capacity to assemble more than 10,000 electric cars, buses and tricycles to overcome the challenges of carbon emissions and climate change in the country.

Addressing journalists shortly after inspecting the e-vehicle project, Momoh said when completed, the electric vehicles, comprising buses, tricycles and taxis, with charging infrastructure, would serve the people in rural communities and urban centres across the Northeast region.

He said: “We have visited the e-vehicles assembly plant, under the management of the North-East Development Commission. These are projects approved by the Federal Executive Council.

“From what we have seen today, I can say that I am very much impressed because nearly all the 10,000 e-vehicles and tricycles are on the ground. They are already assembling them.

“We have also seen a number of e-taxis and buses. We are very much impressed. For me, I think we are not disappointed, and I am sure President Bola Ahmed Tinubu will also be very happy to see that this project has actually seen the light of day.”

According to him, the about-to-be-completed vehicles would create job opportunities for youths during and after their unveiling across the North-East region.

Beyond its inspection, the Minister added, “I have been briefed that all those e-vehicles are going to all six states in the North-East, and by the time they get there, apart from the fact that it will help to improve commuting of people, and create more job opportunities for the youths.

“Take a look at the assembling process. Even before the commissioning, jobs have been created. The vehicles are being assembled by our people.

“When I asked the Director of Operations, he said before they complete the 10,000 target, at least, we must have catered for not less than 100,000 persons who will get jobs in the assembling process. This is the transformation that this administration is talking about,” he stated.

Momoh said, in addition to the vehicles, other rural road projects inspected by the ministry would serve a complementary purpose.

“The e-vehicles and the Jere Bowl road project we inspected are interlinked. Most of the tricycles that we saw today are like minibuses; you can use them to carry both passengers and agricultural produce.

“Let me say it in clear terms that from the very first project we visited, which is the Ngwom/Kushebe/Gadamari axis, to Gongulong, we have seen tremendous improvement on that road corridor,” the minister emphasised.

He, therefore, urged the leadership of the North-East Development Commission to ensure that rural dwellers were not exempted from the e-vehicle distribution chain when completed.

“I am using this opportunity to appeal to the Managing Director of NEDC that in distribution, he should make sure that in the corridor of the new roads, the people there should be catered for because they need these machines to be able to evacuate their products from their area to the city centre,” he said.

Following the minister’s visit to the ongoing construction of the headquarters of the North-East Development Commission in Maiduguri, he expressed satisfaction with the pace of work, assuring that it would be completed in the next 18 to 24 months.

He said, “And here we are today, the office of the headquarters of the North-East Development Commission. When we were here last year, I was just at the basement level. Today, the basement is completed, and one section of the building is already going on.