Hon. Jude Chikelu Nwankwo is the President General of Ladipo Central Executive Auto Dealers Association (LACEC), largest market for fairly used (Tokunbo) motor parts in West Africa. In this executive interview with Markets Business Hilights crew in his office, he opens up on his leadership drives, range of products sold in the market and made passionate appeal to the Lagos State Governor, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu to support the market by completing road and other infrastructure projects initiated by former administration. He spoke on other issues of importance.
Excerpts:
You are the President General of Ladipo Market, Lagos. Can you give us a kind of array of what people buy in Ladipo market?
First of all, Ladipo Market is the biggest automobile market in the whole of West Africa, where you get everything concerning motor parts. We sell engines. We sell underneath, gear box, tyres, and in fact we sell anything concerning motors. These are what we deal on here at Ladipo market.
It is very clear that Nigerian motoring public is aware that once Ladipo Market is shut down or have issues, many cars in the whole of Nigeria would be grounded. So Ladipo market has been helpful to a lot of people in Nigeria driving cars and the motoring community.
Since the coming of this present government, how would you describe government attention to businesses like Ladipo Market?
For now, I would be sincere to you. Maybe because the new governor; His Excellency, Babajide Sanwo-Olu is just arriving, we can say he is trying to arrange himself.
However, the fact is that as of now, Ladipo has not benefitted from the new government or the new governor. If you go round the market now, the road that the former governor started to construct before he left office, nothing is happening there now.
I don’t know whether to say that it is abandoned or let me just say that the road has been abandoned since after election and it is really affecting the traders. Not only the traders but the customers, everywhere is turning upside down because of the state of the two major roads in and out of Ladipo market.
Now based on what you have just observed, how would you want the governor to assist the market?
We all doing business here in Ladipo voted for the governor and we voted for him for good.
We voted for him to come to our aid to help us put our market in shape for our customers. So I am appealing to the governor to come to our aid. We the Ladipo business operators want most especially, the construction of the pedestrian bridge promised by former administration. It is the most important thing to us.
Thousands of people that are trading here are crossing the express and some of us are losing our lives and we are not happy at all.
We need a pedestrian bridge there. Government had approved it and we appealing to the governor to build the pedestrian bridge for us and complete the road so that we can have free traffic.
We can see some new buildings the other side of the road, how did they come up in the market?
The new structures are individual investment that we the traders did to put the market in shape.
What message do you have for your members?
The message that I have for traders and service providers in the market is for them to keep their environment clean that is the most important thing. And they should abide by the rules and regulation of Lagos State Government and relevant agencies.
We want to know the level of assurance you are giving customers in the quality of product and services they should expect as the President General of Ladipo Market?
The assurance I am giving them is whatever they come here to buy for their cars and vehicles are the best quality Tokunbo which would improve their motoring experience.
Like I said earlier, what we deal on is on Tokumbo parts and new parts. Our members always go for the best quality overseas and get them for the satisfaction of Nigerian motoring public. We also have a system whereby maybe you buy a part and it did not work and you bring it back. I would call the customer and the seller and settle the matter amicably. So the assurance that I am giving to customers is for them to come and patronise us and if there is any problem, they should let me know so that we will solve the problem for them.
However, we hardly have issues with customers because we have the best parts at the most affordable prices here at the Ladipo Auto Spare parts market in Mushin Local Government Area of Lagos State.
