Jubril Arogundade, the GM Commercial/National Head Sales and Marketing of CIG Motors Co. Ltd.   speaks to newsmen at the Motor Fair going on in Abuja about the effect of Fx on the auto industry. He also speaks about his organization’s CSR and other issues. Excerpts:

Q. Introduce yourself officially sir.

A. I’m Jubril Arogundade. I’m the GM Commercial/National Head Sales and Marketing of CIG Motors Co. Ltd. 

Q. What is your take on the exchange rates as concerns the auto industry?

A. We have huge issues with the Dollar rate to Naira and we are lamenting on how to reduce the dollar rate to naira and make it better. We already have most of these solutions in our hands. I think the automobile industry, industry cannot exist without dollars. You know things are imported all over the country and dollars are the means of exchange in the world today, in terms of currency.

So if the automobile industry is paid attention to, it can be one of the biggest hubs to reduce unemployment. It can reduce the issue of FX, because we are doing importation and we are also being able to start doing exportation. This is because we have now been able to export to neighboring countries like Cameroon, Ghana etc.

When we start doing that, we start bringing in FX into the country. So I believe that if we put more attention as a nation to the automobile industry we can immediately start moving from the current status quo of our economy in Nigeria.

 Q. What was your experience during the COVID as many companies downsized?

 A. During covid a lot of companies did a lot of downsizing. During the same period some companies have more revenue generated because they applied technology.

So we as a company did not downsize. We increased manpower during the same period. How? We followed the trend in the society by working from home.

So we employed more because during the covid it was an opportunity for us to have time to interview people using virtual platforms. So CIG as a company, we did not downsize. We actually increased manpower. That is some of the progress you are seeing.

Q. Multinationals, one of their undoing is getting involved in the politics of their host nation’s internal politics. What is the stand of CIG Motors?

We are strictly into business and our only attention is strictly development. We believe that when the environment is conducive enough we will do business. If the economy of Nigeria is not good enough, the society is not safe enough, things are not happening, we cannot survive as a business.

So we don’t get involved in anything that is political. We just focus on growth, economic and human capital development. That is all we do. And that is the reason for the little success we have so far in Nigeria

Q. Social responsibility are you having anyone?

A. Yes. We have done so much on social responsibility and we keep on doing.

One of our biggest investments has been into the sports industry and entertainment. Like you know, we are presently the official sponsor of the Nigeria Super Eagle and Super Falcon through the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF). We are the first automobile company that is doing this kind of partnership with NFF.

There is no other sport in Nigeria that brings Nigerians together like football.  So if we can tap in to rebrand the image of Super Eagle and the football Federation it is a way of contributing to the economy and the society and the image of Nigeria. And we are doing that.

We are also contributing hugely to entertainment. We have contributed to the movie and music industry.

We have also contributed to security overtime. We have donated to police –cars-in partnership with Dangote to defend police units all around the country.

We have also donated directly to the Lagos State Security Trust Fund and the likes. So these are the kinds of things we are doing to help.

When there was the pandemic, we made a big donation to the Lagos State government because our business is majorly in Lagos. We donated face masks, we donated ambulances and we also donated cash to support the government.

Q. Thanks for your time.

A. You are welcome.