The President of African Tyre Marketers, Alhaji Issa Akanbi Muhammed, has appealed to the Federal Government to review the policy on tyre importation, which he said has given an edge to Lebanese, Indians and Chinese over Nigerians in the business.
According to him, the policy has resulted to many Nigerian tyre importers going out of business.
In this interview, he also spoke on the ignorance of tyre users, challenges facing tyre business, among other issues. Excerpt:
Why did tyre marketers leave Lagos Island for the Lagos International Trade Fair complex?
We have the largest deposit of genuine tyres in Africa as a whole. The association was founded in Lagos Island and there, we were trading on the street and when the Lagos State government passed the law against street trading, as a responsible and law-abiding association, my members gave me the mandate to relocate the market to a comfortable place where we would be free to do our business without encumbrances. We came to the Lagos International Trade Fair Complex and leased the place that we are now from the Federal Government and started building the shops. We built the market from our own individual contributions. We did not ask for loan or borrow money from any financial institution. We started the project in 2009 and relocated in 2013. In Lagos Island, we were tenants and not landlords. You know the usual conflicts between landlords and tenants. You can hardly settle down to do your business. But here, we are in our own complex and now operating as a cooperate organization unlike in the Island, where we were seen like touts.
What challenges did you face after relocation?
Well, you know that some people are impatient. After our relocation, some of our members who relocated with us felt that business is not moving fast in this new place and they decided to go back to Egypt, so to say. They felt to realize that as a new market, it will take quite a while for the market to sit up and for our customers to adjust themselves and start coming to the new address. But to God be the glory, the market is now operating in full swim because when we were leaving the Island, we left with the soul of the market and what was left behind was just the carcass, so, we know that within a short time, we would be in full business and that is what is happening now.
What will you want the public to know about tyres?
I want people to know that tyre is one of the most important component of a car and as such should be handled with care. People should be attending to their tyres the way they attend to their newborn babies. We in African Tyre Village make sure that we import the best quality tyres for Nigerians. But even if you have a new tyre, in the morning, when you go to check the water and oil in your bonnet, also endeavour to check your tyres, make sure that they are in good condition. Going by the state of Nigerian roads, a lot of things can happen to your tyres when you go out and the impact may not be felt immediately, but when you pack it over night. Another thing is that the life span of tyres are five years. This is whether you drive it or not .The date on the tyre is not the expiration date, but rather the manufacturing date and from there you would be able to know when it would expire. At times, road regulators intimidate ignorant drivers over the date on their tyres. If the date on your tyre is 2019, the tyre will still be sold in 2021 and they will do very well.
What do you do with tyres that you did not sell when the manufacturing date expires?
We have been appealing to the government to introduce buy-back policy. This means, the tyres that expired on our shelves, the companies that we imported them from would take the tyres back and give us brand new ones. Tyre is life. It is not like other components of the car. If this policy is introduced, it will go a long way in checking the desperation of some people in the business. You know somebody who imported 15 containers of tyres and at the end of five years could only sell five containers may want to do something to alter the manufacturing dates in the unsold containers so that he can sell them .The danger in this cannot be over emphasized. But if buy-back policy is introduced, there would not be such desperation. This would go a long way in saving lives that usually occur as a result of influenced tyres. That is why it is very important that if you want to buy your tyres, don’t go to the road side, where there are no laws, go to organized markets where there are stringent laws on selling substandard tyres like African Tyre Village.
What other government policies are negatively affecting the tyre business in the country?
The main one is what I may call trade liberalization. This is even what Donald Trump is fighting in America against China. This policy is sending our members out of the market on a daily basis. Right now there is no tyre manufacturing company in the country. Dunlop and Mechelin have relocated outside the country. What we do is to import. If you import one container from a country, the company that you imported from would send 10 containers down to Nigeria to flood the market and sell at rock bottom prices. This will make it difficult for you to sell your one container. This is what we are facing in the business. Lebanese, Indians and Chinese are guilt of this. So, I am using this medium to appeal to the Federal Government to try to regulate the tyre market. How can an individual be a goal keeper and a striker at the same time? What I am saying is that companies from these countries must not be allowed to retail in Nigeria. They should concentrate on manufacturing while we import and retail.
Are you in partnership with the regulators?
We work hand in hand with Standard Organization of Nigeria (SON) as well as the Federal Road Safety Corps. As I told you earlier, all the tyres in our market pass through the highest standard. We cannot afford to toy with the lives of our people. So, we always ensure that tyres sold in the market are certified. We also partner with Road Safety Corps in educating the end users on how to maximize the use of their tyre. One of the major complaints that we get from our customers on a daily basis is bad road. Good enough the director of Trade Fair Management Board has started to rehabilitate the roads inside the complex, I want the Federal and Lagos State governments to compliment her effort by constructing the Lagos, Badagry Expressway.