The Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele has cited smuggling as the biggest problem confronting the textile industry in the country.
Speaking in an online video produced by the apex bank recently, Emefiele said it is saddening that Nigeria, which boasted of about 180 textiles industries during the 90s, can only point to 15 textile mills at present as a result of the heavy criminal activities perpetrated by smugglers and dumpers across the country.
‘At a time in this country, there are 180 textile mills. Then, all the raw materials including cotton were produced locally. Then, we had companies that were converting the cottons into yarns. But all of these companies are dead today. Three weeks ago when we held a meeting, there were only 15 companies out of about 180 that we had in the past’, the governor said.
He stressed that unlike now, the textile industry used to be the largest employer of labour in Nigeria after the public service as it boast of some notable companies such as the Arewa Textile Plc, Asaba Textile Mill Plc and United Nigeria Textile Plc among others all of which have folded up as the economy gradually hit the block.
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‘That is why it is very important that we all should know that we cannot be talking about availability of jobs in our country whereas we have ignored an industry that used to be the largest employer of labour after the public service in the past. Obviously, we cannot continue to allow this to happen because we need to create jobs for our people; we need to confront dumpers and smugglers in this country and the soon we do so, the better for our country’, he said.
Speaking further, the CBN governor said lack of funding and good effective power supply, which many people had cited as twin issue bedevilling the Nigerian economy, cannot effectively solve the problem confronting the textile industry if smuggling is not completely eradicated.
‘Concerning other issue people have talked about like lack of funding and good electricity, we have actions in place, for instance, the Kaduna Stage Government have engaged some companies while the Federal Government is also looking at building industrial clusters that will provide electricity for these companies to work well. But if you don’t deal with smuggling and dumpers, we will still not do well,’ he said.
It is on record that in the 1970s and early 1980s, Nigeria’s textile industry was the largest in Africa and one of the biggest employers of labour as its over 180 textile mills gainfully employed over 450,000 people. Then, the Textile and garment (CTG) subsector of the economy accounted for over 25 percent of the manufacturing workforce. It was supported by the production of cotton by some 600,000 local farmers across the country.
Watch the video below:
Samson Oyedeyi
