The Lagos State Government has entered into a partnership with CIG Motors Company Limited to procure 5,000 brand new vehicles for its transportation system.
The agreement was signed at the Government House in Alausa, Ikeja, on Monday. Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu revealed that Ibile Holdings Limited, a state-owned entity, played a crucial role in facilitating the partnership.
The project aims to revolutionize road transportation in Lagos, generating employment opportunities and stimulating economic growth for the state’s residents.
“Today, we’ve used our investment outfit called the Ibile Holdings and I think I need to thank them, the current management staff, for responding quickly to their bill to use our investment vehicle, the Ibile Holdings to execute what we believe will be a very successful joint venture,” the governor said.
“The joint venture between the Ibile Holdings and CIG Motors and CIG Motors Company Limited, GAC Motors, especially the brand, in the acquisition of 5,000 new vehicles within our land border.
“We started the first 1,000. We’ve seen how we did. We’ve provided jobs to our people. We’ve created an e-hailing service. But we realise that we need to tweak it.
“We need to provide a lot more fleets and we need to also push the brands to be more acceptable and to be able to move around in different groups and brands of the state.
“In that goal, the first order of vehicles was to see 2,000 coming and in that 2,000, we will be having electric vehicles. That has been the conversation.
“Also these vehicles, we imagine, will begin to change the carbon footprint that we’ve all been talking about as in the future of transportation, as in the future of energy transition, the future of climate change, until we don’t want to take the vaccine.”
Sanwo-Olu also announced plans to introduce carpooling and logistics services, as well as executive chauffeur and rental services, to complement the new transportation system.
“We’re actually a city that is proactive and that lives with other big and major cities of the world and so you will see that this partnership is not just an e-hailing service,” he added.
“It’s also to provide smart taxes for us to be able to do what we call carpool, for us to be able to solve logistic problems, for us to be able to solve delivery problems, and for us to also have executive chauffeur and reliable rental services.”
Sanwo-Olu added that the state plans to venture into air transportation.
“I think the only vertical, which I’m also going to announce here, is that we want to go into air transportation and for us, that will very quickly encircle everything in public transportation that you can imagine in the world,” the governor said.
“Lagos state is also looking at that and we’re doing extensive study, so when we say that we want to build an airport, we just don’t want to build an airport.
“We want to go into that means of transportation and begin and be able to do it and do it very, very well.”
Diana Chen, chairman of CIG Motors, expressed her excitement and honour to partner with the Lagos state government.
Chen commended the governor for his vision and commitment to developing the state’s transportation infrastructure.
She highlighted CIG Motors’ achievements in Nigeria, including the setting up of a fully automated assembly line for automobiles and the delivery of the first affordable brand new cars in the country.
Chen emphasised the company’s belief in keeping promises and delivering on commitments, despite challenges.
“This is our world. We keep our world as our mind. So, come this stage, we have another new and significant key partnership agreement signed today,” Chen said.
“I emphasise that this is an agreement. It’s not an MOU. That means it’s a really official authority and another highly competitive signing today.
“We, all our team here, even our great partner, Mr. Wang, he comes from China, representing JC International. They are giving us full support for this project. Our bank finance, our bank’s people, right? Your people, you know, this is a huge project.
“Mr. Henry, you know, we work together to raise the money from the capital markets. So, they are all my allies. They are all my allies to make sure this project must deliver in the next three, five years.
“In the next three to five years, we are talking to embark over 1 billion brand new cars driving on our east passport. With that 1 billion brand new cars driving on this passport, every chip, think about how much the economy will be.
“So, the GME of that project, we are talking very simple. Within five years or seven years, 1.3 billion USD, that’s our target for the team. We are talking about this one because we have a very strong sense of commercial business analysis.
“That’s why we are able to challenge that. Just contribute 20% GDP. The rest of our business people, our expertise, our international technology partner, to make sure with the deal of this project, we will help the country to revive the economy.”
