The Senate on Tuesday recommended a total ban on the importation of textile materials as part of efforts to revive Nigeria’s collapsed cotton and fabric manufacturing sector.
The upper legislative chamber also called on the Federal Government, Ministry of Agriculture, and Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment to urgently revive textile industries across the country to create jobs and address youth restiveness and insecurity.
The resolutions followed deliberation on a motion titled: “Urgent Need to revive the Textile Industries in Nigeria with particular reference to the Kaduna-Kano axis”, sponsored by Senator Sunday Katung (Kaduna South), and co-sponsored by 10 other senators including Adams Oshiomhole (Edo North); Mohammed Tahir Monguno, (Borno North); Ibrahim Khalid, (Kaduna North), and Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, (Sokoto South).
The Senate also urged the Nigerian Customs Service to increase border surveillance to curb smuggling.
Presenting the motion, Katung noted that Nigeria’s first large textile mill was built in Kaduna in 1957, with similar mills replicated across regions. This drove tremendous growth in the 1960s and 1970s, aided by government interventionist schemes including a ban on textile imports.
“By the late 1970s and 1980s, there were 167 textile mills in the country that provided 500,000 direct employments thereby making the textile industry the highest employer of labour in Nigeria, after the Federal Government.
“Kaduna referred to as the ’Textile City’ once housed about 11 mills operating at optimal capacity, including Arewa Textile Plc, Fantext Nigeria Ltd, Notext Nigeria Ltd, Super Text Ltd, and United Nigeria Textile Ltd.,” he said.
He,, however, regretted that by 1997 KTL, Arewa Textiles and UNTL were barely functioning due to obsolete equipment and irregular power supply. By 2007, all three mills had shut down with over 7,000 employees losing their jobs.
Katung expressed concern that Nigeria is now a net importer of textiles, relying on imports to meet over 99 per cent of domestic needs.
“With the lifting of the ban on textile importation in 2010, Nigeria now has almost 80% of its textiles imported from China, Indonesia, Taiwan and other countries. This trend is definitely not helping the Nigerian economy, in terms of employment/job creations and needed foreign exchange,” he stated.
The lawmaker said the once third-largest textile industry in Africa in the 1980s, which generated up to $2 billion annually and produced over 1.4 billion textile pieces, is now the weakest segment of Nigeria’s industrial sector.
Senators who contributed warned against allowing the motion to die like previous ones and called for a holistic plan covering cotton production, modern machinery, and working capital.
Senator Jibrin Isa, (Kogi East) proposed a structured bailout: existing machinery to represent original promoters’ equity, the Bank of Industry to provide additional machinery as Federal Government’s equity, and commercial banks to grant working capital.
Also, Senator Muhammad Ogoshi Onawo, (Nasarawa South), lamented that 500,000 direct jobs have been lost in the sector, saying “If the federal government acts on the proposed backward integration plan, youths will be employed, farmers engaged and the country will be better for it.”
In his own, Senator Adams Oshiomhole.(Edo North) blamed the collapse on “ill-conceived trade policies” during the military era, including Nigeria’s submission to WTO rules without safeguards, noting that “only manufacturing creates job-led growth that reduces idle hands and insecurity,.”
Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, (Kogi Central) urged focus on cotton cultivation, noting that cotton remains America’s number one cash crop, generating $75 billion annually. She cited Ethiopia’s 40 textile houses supplying H&M and Zara and creating about 50,000 jobs.
But Senator Mohammed Tahir Monguno, (Borno North), called for two measures: an outright ban on foreign textile imports and a special-purpose fund from the Central Bank of Nigeria, similar to that created for Nollywood, to revive the sector.
The Senate said it would engage the Executive arm to ensure the motion receives attention needed to create over 45 million fresh jobs, urging commercial banks and high-net-worth Nigerians to invest in the textile industry.
