By Muazu Elazeh

Nigeria never ceases to surprise me, and I’m sure the nation baffles many other citizens as well. How a country of over 200 million people, with extensive and fertile land suitable for cotton cultivation, spends huge sums importing textile materials is one of the many wonders of this controversial giant of Africa.

The decline of a country that had a thriving textile industry employing thousands of citizens in the 1980s to one with no viable textile sector by the 2000s exemplifies regression. But that is Nigeria.

Despite having over 80 million able-bodied youth, representing 53% of the population unemployed, in the midst of 86 million multi-dimensionally poor citizens, it is alarming that Nigeria is not doing anything serious to revive a promising sector like the textile.

But that is Nigeria. We seem to be regressing, and the only people making progress are those with unrestricted access to our common resources: politicians and their families. The story of the Nigerian textile sector reflects the poor state of the Nigerian nation, where corruption, policy inconsistency, and related ills flourish recklessly. And here is a short example.

The federal government has introduced policies and loan schemes, including the N100 billion textile fund, but these policies have often been poorly implemented, difficult for manufacturers to access, and inadequately enforced.

In 2019, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) approved approximately N19.2 billion to finance the establishment of nine ginneries nationwide. The apex bank also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with key stakeholders in the Cotton, Textile, and Garment (CTG) subsector, including the Nigeria Cotton Association, the Ginners Association of Nigeria, and the Nigerian Textile and Garment Manufacturers Association.

Other groups that signed the MoU with the CBN included the Armed Forces, the Nigerian Police Force, the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) and some uniform organisations. The apex bank stated that the fund was designed to enable players in the textile sector to retool their processing plants and provide improved access to finance at a single-digit interest rate.

“We (CBN) are improving the links between cotton farmers and ginneries by ensuring that ginneries can off-take the high-quality cotton produced by these farmers. The same support will be extended to the textile and garment firms,” then CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, had said.

“We have invested heavily in our local textile and garment factories to retool and produce assorted uniforms for our uniformed services that meet international standards,” he added.

The funding came on the heels of the establishment of the Textile Revival Implementation Committee (TRIC), comprising the Federal Ministries of Agriculture and Rural Development, Water Resources, Industry, Trade, and Investment, as well as the governments of Kano, Kaduna, Katsina, Gombe, and Zamfara States.

Essentially, the aim was to work towards the nation’s goal of attaining self-sufficiency in cotton production and textile materials within three years. It is expected that a combination of these efforts, among others, will lead to the revival of collapsed ginneries in Gusau, Funtua, Sokoto, Zaria, and elsewhere.

These ginneries, aside from employing hundreds of workers and making a significant contribution to both job creation and revenue, have been essential in supplying textile needs for Nigeria and neighbouring countries such as Niger and Chad. Now, they are gone. What remains of them is the long and valued history stored in the memories of some of their surviving workers and their families.

Barely seven years after the CBN’s initiatives under Godwin Emefiele, there is little evidence of significant results. The textile sector remains sluggish. Nigerians outsource garment production to the United Arab Emirates, Senegal, Mauritania, and Côte d’Ivoire.

The nation transitioned from having an industry that was once the largest employer of labour, apart from the federal government, in the 1980s, with approximately 175 textile firms, to fewer than 20 firms in 2022. Understandably, with a sharp decline in the number of textile firms, employment has also decreased significantly. The industry’s job count dropped from 137,000 in 1996 to 24,000 in 2008 and is now below 20,000.

Are we surprised? Why should we be, when illegal imports of textile fabrics and other products that the nation can produce locally continue to thrive?

Data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed that Nigeria spent N814.27 billion on textile imports in the first nine months of 2025, highlighting the sector’s weakness locally and emphasising the nation’s reliance on imported fabrics.

It is difficult to rationalise this concerning trend because successive governments have repeatedly promised to revitalise this promising sector. The promises failed due to poor implementation amidst endemic corruption.

Perhaps it is time to ask: what is happening with the implementation of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s local content policy, which requires ministries, departments, and agencies, the largest spenders in the economy, to stop procuring goods and services from abroad when they can be sourced locally?

Despite being home to an estimated 230 million people and possessing abundant arable land suitable for growing various crops, Nigeria remains an import-dependent country, often importing products and services that can be produced locally.

In 2020, the country spent a staggering $55.4 billion on imports, slightly more than the $52.1 billion spent in 2021. In 2022, N25.59 trillion was spent on imports; in 2023, $45.9 billion; and over N30 trillion in 2024. These imported goods include agricultural products, raw materials, manufactured items, energy products, solid minerals, and petroleum-based products.

Several factors contribute to Nigeria’s unsustainable reliance on imports, including high production costs resulting from persistent energy poverty, insecurity, inconsistent government policies, and high taxation, all of which hinder the development of a robust domestic manufacturing sector.

These factors are the reason the textile sector and other previously viable industries are now defunct. The ginneries are no longer operational. Cotton farming has become a thing of the past. Textile factories in Kano and many others, that once existed and provided livelihoods for thousands of families, are now a part of history. The textile sector is crucial for Nigeria’s economic growth. With a large market, there is no reason for the government to neglect it.

There is no evidence that President Tinubu’s local content policy, especially his directive for government agencies to favour local goods and services, is being adhered to.

If President Tinubu is committed to his promise to build a $1 trillion economy by 2026 and a $3 trillion economy by the end of this decade, he must ensure that vital sectors, such as textiles, are revitalised.

—-Elazeh is the GMD of LEADERSHIP Newspaper