A season of revival is on the way for Nigeria’s ailing textile industry. The administration of President Muhammadu Buhari has constituted a committee with the mandate to proffer credible practical solutions that could turnaround the textile industry.
In furtherance of this directive, Sony Echono, permanent secretary, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, inaugurated a 17-man committee in Abuja recently. He said that cotton, textile and garments industries across the country have become shadows of themselves due to influx of cheap textile materials, inconsistent government policies and dumping of sub-standard textile materials in the country.
The 17-man committee would be headed by D.E. Eniaiyeju, director of Agriculture in the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. Its terms of reference include the identification of the current constraints and challenges facing the cotton, textile and garment sub-sector and offer practical solutions to the challenges, among others.
Echono said that it is significant to the economy that the cotton, textile and garments industry in Nigeria, which once employed over 400,000 workers be resuscitated. According to him, “the United Nigeria Textiles Limited in Kaduna and other textile factories across the country employed over 400,000 Nigerians, but today, they are ghosts of themselves. Only about 30,000 workers are working in all these textile factories.”
The committee has two weeks to submit its report for onward transmission to Mr. President.
By Dike Onwuamaeze
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