Igbo inventor of first Africa indigenous car passes on
Engr Ezekiel Izuogu a brilliant dreamer, renowned and well-respected Scientist and Inventor, Engr. Dr. Ezekiel Izuogu, from Ideato North LGA of Imo State, has sadly passed away.
Izuogu, the inventor of Africa’s foremost Car manufacturer in history died on Saturday, 18th July 2020.
In 1997 the brilliant Igbo, Biafran Electrical Engineer and Lecturer at the Federal Polytechnic Nekede, Dr. Ezekiel Izuogu designed and developed the Izuogu Z-600, the first African indigenous manufactured car.
On a side note General Sani Abacha set up a 12 man committee to test the car and it passed and was presented to 52 nations.
The government promised a grant of N235 million to Dr. Izuogu which was never received, South Africa loved the car so much they wanted to invest and open a factory for it but Dr. Izuogu wanted his people to benefit from the work and opportunity of manufacturing the car in Nigeria so he continued himself building the cars in Imo state (Biafra).
However, on Saturday, March 11, 2006, more than 12 heavily armed men broke into Dr. Izuogu’s factory in Naze, Imo State.
The men carted away the machines, tools, car moulds and the design history notebook and design files for the Z-600.
They also stole the design file Z-MASS, containing the design history for mass production of the Z-600 car. Killing the project.
While reacting to the incident, Izuogu said:
According to Dr. Izuogu: “It seems that the target of this robbery is to stop the efforts we are making to mass-produce the first-ever locally made car in Africa. Other items stolen included locally produced timing wheel, locally produced camshaft, locally produced crankshaft, locally produced engine tappets, all 20 pieces each.
Also stolen were ten pieces of locally produced Z-600 engine blocks, ten pieces of locally produced pistons, four pieces of engine block mounds, four pieces of top engine block moulds, ten pieces of engine flywheel and two pieces each of rear car and front mudguard moulds.
”The inventor regretted that not only did they lose over one N1 billion in monetary terms, but also time (about 10 years) and the energy it took to design and produce the moulds. “To worsen the matter, our design notebook was also stolen,”.
Nwada Ugochinyere Onyechere reporting, Obinwannem News
