Located in Zaria, Nigeria, Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) is the largest university in the country. It is the second largest in Africa to Cairo University in Egypt.

Students, along with the university’s faculty and staff, conceptualized and manufactured an environmentally friendly car made of 100% local parts, including the items they recycled. The credit lies with the institution’s Department of Mechanical Engineering and their students.

Dr. Mohammed Dauda is the head of the department who agreed to allow the car to participate in the ‘Shell Eco Marathon Competition. This was the motivation behind the projects inception.

Speaking with journalist, he said.

“In addition to federal government’s automotive policy, I must say that the reason we started this (manufacturing of the car) came from Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited.

They invited ABU to participate in what they call Shell Eco Marathon.

Speaking to the recycled goods used and innovation innovation involved, Dauda says:

“Though, there are things that we did not fabricate ourselves, you will be surprised that some of the components like the electrical, we just looked at an old computer system and then adopted some of the components that were useful to us. So, this is one example of what we did, which is recycling, otherwise, I will say 100 per cent of the things we used were produced here in Zaria”.

SOUND OFF: Outstanding job, but what is it going to take for our students to do something similar?

Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/201503160419.html