Since the inception of democratic rule, from the Obasanjo era to the Jonathan era, because of the advocacy of the National Union of Textile, Garment and Tailoring Workers of Nigeria, the Federal Government has demonstrated interest in reviving the textile industry.
Obasanjo era: year 2002
Year 2002 could very well be declared the year of textile revival. President Olusegun Obasanjo that year specifically devoted a whole weekend forum to ‘TEXTILES’. The outcome was refreshingly optimistic and revolutionary in its proceedings, its revelations and its possible resolutions of the identified problems of textile industry. President Obasanjo at the forum underscored the significance of textile industry. He vowed not to allow the industry to collapse so that we are naked. Faced with ‘naked’ statistics of factory closures then, by stakeholders, the president agreed as much that we are already being stripped ‘naked’ as the industry was on the verge of total collapse.
The president also announced a number of policy initiatives that included temporary suspension of importation of all fabrics into the country. With effect from September 1, the then Commerce Minister, Mustafa Bello, announced the suspension of importation of African super and wax materials aimed at checking the sickening dumping of sub-standard and harmful prints into the country. A new certification arrangement was put in place to ensure that imported fabrics meet certain Nigerian standard in terms of price, quality and health of the citizenry. Genuine imports could only pass through two ports, namely, Apapa and Tin Can ports for verification by customs. Imports outside these ports were treated as contraband to be auctioned at 20 percent of market value or destroyed on account of sub-standard and harmful effects on human lives. The relevant agencies, namely, Standards Organization (SON), Customs and FIIRO, were to ensure compliance with the new policy. There was a Presidential Task Force headed by the then no-nonsense FCT minister, Mallam El-Rufai, charged with apprehending smuggled textile fabrics and burning them. All these measures helped in halting the factory closures and even improving the capacity utilization of the existing survived factories.
Yar’Adua/Jonathan era
President Musa Yar’Adua said his priority was economy, economy and economy. After much advocacy, the Yar’Adua regime moved to implement the N70 billion intervention fund launched by Obasanjo. It was, however, the Jonathan administration that finally endorsed the intervention fund under the cotton/textile revival plan. The new deal supervised by the then Vice President Namadi Sambo revolutionized funding for the real sector and breathed life into the ailing industries. The deal worked out by the CBN and BOI covered lending and refinancing of projects, restructuring of existing portfolios to manufacturers and support for investment in industrial clusters power supply. The reopening of UNT Plc in 2010 after three years of closure (with close to 1,500 direct jobs currently) was due to these cocktail of measures pushed by BOI, CBN and government. BOI under Evelyn Oputu lived up to its motto: “Transforming Nigeria’s industrial sector”. However all said, we can see the overall impact assessment of all the past efforts from the banners in this hall of closed textile factories.
2015 theme
Our chosen theme this year is to help assist the Buhari administration to consolidate on the few gains of the past, avoid policy mistakes of the past and, above all, revive all closed factories where past governments in spite of their efforts could not stop the free fall.
Suggested policy measures/solutions to the revival of textile industry
With all the acknowledged efforts of the past governments, they never made revival of textiles a campaign programme as President Buhari has done. It is commendable that Buhari named textile revival explicitly in his campaign promise. What we must do is what is being done.
The president said: “I still recall with clarity that at some point, the textile industry in Nigeria was employing about 320,000 Nigerians. But today, the same industry employs less than 30,000 people and the factories operate below capacity or they are completely closed.
“I have made a promise to Nigerians that jobs will be created as part of efforts to revive the economy and that promise will be fulfilled. We will move as fast as we can to resuscitate the textile and mining industries, and also improve production in our agricultural sector…. We cannot allow industries and factories to close down. Instead, we should be making every effort to ensure that we re-open the closed ones and attract new ones to reduce unemployment.”
On his part, Governor El-Rufai of Kaduna State said: “Reviving the textiles is a significant campaign promise of General Buhari and he is committed to it. Besides, Buhari lives in Kaduna and knows the impact of the textile industry on the economy. Kaduna used to be Manchester of the textile industry. We have met at forum of northern governors-elect and we have decided to ensure the revival of the textile companies. It is disgraceful that the largest economy in Africa imports textile materials from Senegal and other countries.”
We agree with President Buhari that the key to security is massive youth employment.
Visit the closed and surviving factories and see internally abandoned factories (IAFs)
Visit the closed factories. Nigeria no doubt is right to seek for foreign direct investment. But what Nigeria needs urgently is to first reopen the existing closed factories. And this must start with direct factory visit. We applaud commendably Mallam El-Rufai, the governor of Kaduna State, for the historic visit to all the closed factories in Kaduna town and even our office on the 12th of May this year after he was elected and well before he assumed office.
Africa Industrialization Day is celebrated on November 20 every year as declared by United Nations Development Organization (UNIDO). On this day, governments and other real sector organizations in many African countries examine ways to stimulate Africa’s industrialization process. It is also an occasion to draw worldwide media attention to the problems and challenges of industrialization in Africa.
I suggest that as part of the activities in Nigeria this year, all state governors, the president and the vice president, all 500 plus legislators must be encouraged to visit closed factories. In particular, it will even be nice for our dear Comrade Governor to return back to those factories where he once collectively bargained for the workers with strikes now on permanent investment strike.
I suggest that beyond integrity and accountability, the real sense of responsibility or lack of it of elected officials must be measured in terms of their commitment (or lack of it) to the reopening of all closed factories in Nigeria. We must halt the existing de-industrialization of the country.
Industry matters
The importance of industry cannot be over-emphasized. Our government should realise that oil and gas and the new entrants, solid minerals, are exhaustible resources. The key to real transformation and economic recovery lies in manufacturing. Nigeria has no business in alleviating poverty when it can and should generate wealth by increasing domestic capacity utilization through protection of industry. I agree that private sector is the engine of growth. But as we have seen worldwide, the real lubricant of this engine remains the government.
Stop smuggling; we need creative destruction
Our solidarity song says, “We can bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old”. The bane of the industry is unfair competition from India and China reinforced by smuggling made possible by 152 land smuggling routes (Customs says it is actually 149 routes as of 2002).
Reward and sanctions for Customs
The challenge lies in how to motivate the Customs men and women to ensure compliance. The Customs seems to look the other ways in the past such that smugglers literally overrun the economy without declaration of war. Let government equip the Customs and provide generous incentives to motivate confiscation of the contraband. We must treat smugglers as insurgents who are destroying thousands of lives.
No industrialization without electrification. There should be uninterrupted electricity in Africa.
Protect your industry; public hearings on state of industry
There should be public hearings of the relevant committees of the two Houses about the state of the industry. We must protect our industry. If there is the will, there will be the way. We must celebrate Alhaji Isa and Mamman Daura for protecting Funtua Textiles.
The reversal of industry’s fortunes started in 1997 when, without consultation with industry’s operators, Abacha dictatorship lifted a ban on imports without pre-conditions. That singular arbitrariness underscores why dictatorship is bad for enterprise and development.
What is good for Europe is good for Africa
Europe and America developed on the tripod of agriculture, construction and textile. Even after they have moved to high-tech industry, they still jealously hold on to these industries through protective measures of different dimensions because they are also central to employment creation and security. In Bangladesh alone, as many as 10 million people are employed in textile sub-sector. The fourth and the last challenge is enforcement. The country is tall on policy, but they are more in the breach than observance.
Need for industrialization
Industrialization assumes a special importance in development given its importance in the transformation of the economy through production of goods and services, employment generation and poverty eradication.
Industrialization is at the heart of development discourse. If goods produced are not broadly distributed, among the population, we can only talk of economic growth. However, if the goods meet the basic human needs of a large percentage of the population, industrial growth can then be said to be accompanied by development. The advantages of industrialization include lessening of dependency on imports, employment creation and saving scarce foreign exchange.
Patronize made in Nigeria
Nigerian products are not inferior. They are of good quality. Many Nigerian textile mills have won national and international quality awards. Government should patronise made-in-Nigeria textiles for uniforms for schools, military and para-military organisations. The key to reduction in prices of domestic fabrics does not lie in exposing domestic products to unfair imports but in lowering domestic cost of production by providing cheaper and efficient infrastructure and initiating industry-friendly policies such as reduction of interest rate, among others.
Buhari must be Nigeria’s new Sardauna and Lee Kwau Yew
The president deserves commendation for restoring the activist developmental role of the state. India subsidises its long-dated industry through reduced energy tariffs and generous export incentives that made Indian products undersell Nigerian products at landing costs. Indeed, India has a programme tagged ‘Focus on Africa’ with a view to dumping its relatively cheaper goods.
Beyond textile; we support the change agenda
There is a popular saying that “Precious things come in small packages”. Since inauguration on May 29, President Muhammadu Buhari has made some significant precious moves in the direction of good governance in the areas of security, economy and anti-corruption.
We commend and support measures by the Federal Government to reduce cost of governance. We call on the members of the National Assembly to follow in the footsteps of Mr. President and Vice President. N130 billion for 500 legislators is NOT acceptable.
We also commend President Muhammadu Buhari for resisting the pressure to remove subsidy on petroleum products. The president should rather deal with the problem which is corruption in subsidy management. We should not throw away the baby with the bad water; accept the baby and throw away the bad water. There is nothing inherently bad with subsidy, what is bad is subsidy mismanagement. President Buhari has shown that there is no substitute for good governance. We must encourage him.
We commend the Federal Government’s effort to fix the refineries. It is remarkable that some of the nation’s refineries are now working. We support the presidential directive on a Single Treasury Account (STA) for all federal revenues to ensure greater probity, transparency and accountability in the collection, disbursement and utilization of national funds.
We demand the recent call by the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) for the recovery of over $7.5bn (N1.4tn) from oil and gas companies operating in the country should be taken seriously by the Federal Government. Labour will partner with Federal Government to stop cases of underpayment and under-assessment of taxes, royalties and rents revealed by NEITI in its independent audit reports on the industry.
Labour agrees with President Buhari that Nigeria has to break the “vicious cycle” of corruption, unemployment and insecurity in Nigeria before we can make progress. All Nigerians are therefore enjoined to support the government in this war against graft, which is the root of all woes including senseless violence engendered by poverty.
Being excerpts of a paper presented at the opening ceremony of the 27th National Education Conference of the union in Kaduna, August 25, 2015.
ISSA AREMU