‘Nigeria should develop her standards that keys in into international standards’

Engr. Segun Bolaji

Engr. Segun Bolaji is a director of S.Adiss Agricultural Engineering Limited, indigenous fabricators of feed mills and other production and processing machines since 1979. Here, in this interview conducted on the grounds of Eagle Square, Abuja he spoke on the quality of locally fabricated equipment and why Nigeria should have her own standards. Excerpts…

Can you let us meet you?

My name is Engr. SegunBolaji, Director of S.ADISS Agricultural Engineering LTD. The first indigenous company to fabricate feed mills equipment in Nigeria. I am also the National Financial Secretary of Agricultural Machinery Equipment Fabricator of Nigeria.

Let us get down to basics which is standardization of equipment with efficient working, without value for money, and many other issues, what will be your reaction to this in the capacity of your company and its solutions?

I will say a couple of things straight. People are mixing things together; there is difference between good finishing and durability. There could be a machine with good finishing with durability. As far as Nigerian machines are concerned, fabricators make very durable machines but our problem is access to equipment that will make our machines neater. I know of a couple of Chinese machines brought into the country that are not durable at all. 

A lot of them are made of cast iron One thing about cast iron is when it breaks, it cannot be remedied. But a machine made through a metallic sheet is better. As first indigenous company to fabricate feed mills equipment s and we have many customers that we have made feed mills for in the country since 1979 and they are still using them till date. One of them is Hope Poultry Farms in Ibadan and Arigbabuwo Farms. These are people I can take you to go and see what I am saying. What we need from our government are basically two things. First is that we want our machines to be Standard Organization of Nigeria (SON)’s standardized. If you want to compete globally, there is certain standard you must meet and the least of this standard is ISO 2001.

How many of the companies in Nigeria are ISO certified?

Right now Government should be thinking of allowing us to come up with our own International Standard (Nigeria Standard) that will key into the International Standard.

What is SON doing as regards this?

When you go to a country like China, China has her own standard, why can’t Nigeria have her own? Check out these generators we buy in the market like 2.5KV? You will find that it is the same thing; it is just the brand that is different. That is the standard that we are talking about here. If I am making a one ton per hour grater in Abuja, the same person in Ibadan will be doing the same thing. Another issue is the issue of sophisticated workshop equipment that will make our job easier, faster and neater to compete globally: How many fabricators can purchase all these equipment, to maintain these Standards?

Do you do the spare for the machine too?

Of course when you make a machine you must make the spare together. Definitely we do that too. Let us take this feed mill for example; all the spares needed by it is are made available by our company like the harmer and spanner which we have made.

What is the feed mill capacity on the way of display?

This is turkey feed mills with capacity of ten tons per hour and this is the latest of such in Nigeria. No fabricator has made this, and besides before now Nigerian fabricators make feed mills, but this is a new mixer. It is called a horizontal mixer and the other one is vertical. The advantage the horizontal has over the vertical type is basically two things.

1.        It takes 10-20mins for vertical mixer to mix while with 2-mins horizontal has mixed everything.

2.       When you mix with the vertical, there is what we call dead spot, which is a region where all the ingredients you are mixing together do not mix, but for the horizontal mixer, it mixes thoroughly. 

 

And that is what NIAS is advocating for that farmers should move from vertical mixer to the horizontal mixer. The problem is price difference. Vertical is N550, 000.00 while Horizontal is N5 million. The quality of feed is very competitive in the market.