Meet Plateau boy who built ‘tractor’

At 23, Jerry Isaac Mallo has made a statement with the various machines he fabricated. Against all odds, including opposition from many people, including his parents, Mallo has earned a lot of fame and respect in Plateau State as one of the youngest and most impactful inventors presently. At an early age, he always scouted […]

At 23, Jerry Isaac Mallo has made a statement with the various machines he fabricated. Against all odds, including opposition from many people, including his parents, Mallo has earned a lot of fame and respect in Plateau State as one of the youngest and most impactful inventors presently. At an early age, he always scouted for scraps with which to build things. He turned the store in his parents’ house into a junkyard, which he called his workshop. When given money to replace worn-out slippers or shoes, Jerry would instead buy a spanner or any hand tool he needed in his workshop and continue managing his worn-out shoes. 

He subjected his mother to the stress of always throwing out many of the scraps he gathered around the house. At any given opportunity, Mallo unscrewed his father’s television, radio and other gadgets and re-coupled them. But he didn’t escape his father’s cane. 

His father, Isaac Buwah Mallo said, “When I asked him to sit down and read his books he would not; he always wanted to gather scraps, which he used in constructing machines. Because of this, I used to flog him a lot as a child.”

With parents who were civil servants and farmers, all Jerry Mallo could think of at a young age was how to simplify and speed up his portion of the farm work so he could have enough time to work when he retired to his workshop. There, he experimented on several mechanical gadgets, starting from prototype toy cars to several agricultural machines. His latest invention is a farming tractor, a feat which impressed many people, including Vice President Yemi Osinbajo during Plateau’s micro, small and medium enterprises clinic in May 2017.  

Already, Mallo has developed agricultural machines such as maize threshers, rice husking machine, fonio (acha) blending machine, multiple milling machines, dryers for tomatoes and more. Soon after secondary school, he also fabricated and rode a car, using wood and rods. Lately, he produced a functional tractor, which has been displayed at various medium and small scale enterprises exhibitions in Jos and Abuja.

But getting to this point was not easy for the 23-year-old boy, who was born and bred in the farming village of Kunet in Bokkos Local Government Area of Plateau State. He did not allow the lack of electricity in the community, a lot of armed robbery activities, and the fact that his parents needed his contributions in the farm, to discourage him. “I grew up doing a lot of farm work, and we did it manually, but that did not discourage me,” he said.  

His family farmed Irish potatoes, maize and soya beans, so while in primary school, Mallo thought of a machine that could save him time and reduce the farm stress. “We used to thresh the maize manually, putting them in sacks and beating it with sticks. I used to think of how to invent a machine that would do a five-day job in one day so that I could focus on my engineering work. I made the first maize threshing machine while I was in JSS2.”

Some of the materials for the machine were sourced from the junkyard, and with his little savings from farming, Mallo came up with the sum of N20,000, with which he made the maize thresher. 

“That was my first useful invention. As a child I made a lot of battery-powered toys like prototype cars with wires and zincs. I made the first one when I was probably in primary 3 or 4,” he said. 

Everyone knew that Mallo was talented. While in secondary school, he met a friend he calls Madu, an equally passionate inventor, and they developed a generator that worked without fuel.  

“My dream has been to manufacture cars that will run without fuel in Nigeria, so after the maize thresher, I started pushing towards my dream. I researched on how to make an engine that would power itself. I designed a generator that won’t use fuel. That was when I came across Madu and we realised we had the same passion. We developed the generator, and with it, we participated in several competitions, and by our SS3, we had won several competitions and represented Nigeria outside the country,” he said.

Upon graduation, Mallo thrilled many when he made a model car, using a grinding machine engine. By welding some iron bars, fixing a seat, steering, wheel, clutch and other vital parts, Mallo rode his model car around town. 

His parents and other relatives were shocked when the 23-year-old and his friend gained admission to read Mechanical Engineering in the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), but came back less than a month on campus.  

“I didn’t see anything to learn; it was more of theory, so much mathematics. I preferred practical work. And I didn’t like the notion of writing exactly what the lecturer said, just so I could pass exams, so I came back home and started farming in large quantities. I kept on developing the small car I made and used it to transport fertilizer to the farm. Madu also returned, but he had a lot of pressure from his family, so he had to return to school.”

While in Kunet, a piece of advice by a rich Good Samaritan gave Mallo the opportunity to showcase his talents to the world. With that he got sponsorship to undergo a two-year training programme in automotive engineering in the United Kingdom. He continued to sustain his academic financial demands with the help of resources he got from cassava processing machines he made and gave to his parents to mill cassava for large flour companies in Nasarawa State.  

Since he returned home in 2015, Mallo has made an Irish potato processing machine, which peals, slices, blends and mills potatoes into chips and powder. He has modernised the maize thresher, made fonio (acha) blending machine, as well as multiple milling machines. 

His next target is to come up with a better car. Though funding has been holding him back, Mallo said, “In the next two years I may come up with a car made out of fibre glass and carbon fibre. It will be seven times stronger than steel.’’

Lamenting that banks refused to give him loans because they did not believe in his abilities, he said, “I have decided to keep my car ideas to myself and develop them gradually when I get funds. Even when I was to make the tractor, the micro finance bank I approached, which had given me loans in the past, didn’t believe I could do it, and so, didn’t provide me with the funds for the tractor. But when they learnt that I had made it, they were shocked and impressed.” 

Now with three employed members of staff and 17 apprentices, Mallo said although his parents still farm potatoes, they now use his modernised machines. He recalled how his mother would scold him for littering their house with scraps, saying, “I will see the day these irons you bring to the house will start giving birth to money.’’ I cried that day and I wrote the date down somewhere. So the day I brought money home from the machines I made, I told my dad to the hearing of my mum: “Now the irons have started giving birth to money.”

Mallo’s message to the youth is quiet simple: “keep aside enjoyment for now and push for your dreams. Be bold, no one knows your dreams. You can tell someone your dream and he sees you as crazy, but forget about it and move on.”  

Today, his father said he was glad that his father defied all odds to achieve his dream. “My advice to parents is that they should not just shout off their children when they see them exhibiting some kind of character; they should talk to them and try to understand their areas of interest,” he said.