Catriona Laing, the British High Commissioner to Nigeria,
made this known on Monday during a courtesy visit to MAX in Lekki, Lagos.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that Manufacturing Africa
is a project which seeks to promote industrialisation in East and West Africa
by attracting £1.2 billion in foreign direct investment and creating 90,000
jobs by 2026.
Manufacturing Africa is supporting MAX’s ambitions by
helping it raise the funds for the assembly of electric vehicles.
Laing said the UK Government was delighted to scale up
support for MAX because of the company’s brilliant innovation and solutions.
She said: “It is amazing to see young minds come up with
solutions to real problems that can help us tackle the challenges faced with
climate change.
“The company is also doing a great job of providing two,
three and four wheel vehicles for commercial drivers and health insurance.”
Laing noted that the commission was looking forward to see
the innovation rolled out across Africa and also in the UK.
Also speaking, Adetayo Bamiduro, Chief Executive Officer of
MAX, who commended the UK Government for its support, said the company was
excited about unlocking networks and relationships required to drive adoption
of manufacturing electric vehicles in Nigeria.
He noted that when the company started, its first mission
was to solve challenges around last mile transportation in Sub Sahara Africa.
Bamiduro said some years into the company’s work, they
realised that there was way too much gas emission in Africa and the idea of
manufacturing Electric vehicles was born.
He said: “We have successfully designed the first Africa
ready electric motorcycle called the MAX M3.
“At MAX, we are excited about our projects and the two to
three years partnership we have with Manufacture Africa.”
According to Bamiduro, green house gas emission will hit 2.3
Gigaton in Africa mobility by 2030 if electric vehicles adoption does not take
off.