Textile industry under threat

Mr. Eme Ijioma, 43, has just off-loaded bales of secondhand clothes from a truck from Benin Republic. He is the boss and major distributor of such materials in the Yaba Secondhand clothes market. Other traders are already waiting to pay for and collect the bales, which they in turn will take to their shops within the market.

The materials are smuggled at night through the numerous bush paths along the porous Nigeria-Benin border. ''We are disturbed by the customs because importation of secondhand clothes has been banned by the government and anyone caught has his goods seized but we always find a way out,'' says Ijioma, who is the President of Ogbamba Traders Association, in the market.

In spite of the ban, secondhand clothes have continued to find their ways into the ever- growing bend-down boutiques popularly called ''Okrika markets'' located in major cities in Nigeria. The trend, acccording to manufacturers, poses a serious threat to the continued existence of local textile mills.
Massive importation of textiles both secondhand and new garments especially from Asia coupled with high cost of production locally, has led to the shutting down of 65 local textile mills and the laying off of a total of 150,000 textile workers in the last decade, according to Comrade Issa Aremu, General Secretary of Textile, Tailoring and Garment Union.

''More than one million other persons whose jobs are linked to the textile industry, such as traders and cotton farmers have lost their means of livelihood as a result of the closures. Presently, there are just about 50,000 workers left in the textile sector which used to be the highest employer of labour,'' Aremu said in a telephone interview from the northern textile city of Kaduna.

Apart from this menace, an agreement signed last November between Nigeria and Benin Republic, which allows goods from both countries free passage through their common borders, is giving local textile manufacturers some serious concerns.

''The border agreement with Benin Republic tells the futility of top-down governance just the same way it was done under the military regime of late General Sani Abacha, during which Nigerian government joined the World Trade Organisation (WTO) without being a trading country and without consulting widely with stakeholders at home,'' Aremu said.

According to him, ''the Nigerian government is today repeating that same mistake at the sub-regional level by signing the agreement with Benin Republic without taking into consideration how it would adversely affect the nation's economy and its people''.

''Benin Republic economy is purely a smuggling economy. Benin is a trading post for made-in-China and Malaysian goods. The border agreement will further compound the problem of smuggling and impact negatively on our deteriorating industry,'' he stated.

The textiles union, which is yet to formally protest to the government over the border agreement, is also angry that the government plans to join the Economic Community of West African States' harmonised tariff structure.
''In the 2005 budget, Nigeria plans to join ECOWAS harmonised tariff structure which means we will lower our tariff structure from the current 55 percent to 18 percent. If you lower tariff, you create avenue to flood your market with imported goods. Why is Nigeria eager to lower tariff when Ghana is not doing so? Apart from Nigeria and Ghana, the other countries on the West African coast are just trading posts for China, Indonesia and France,'' Aremu stated.

The Nigerian Textile Manufacturers Association (NTMA) believes that ordinarily the agreement with Cotonou would not be a threat to the local textile industry since Benin only has four textile mills out of which only one is producing Nigeria's kind of fabrics, but like the textile workers, NTMA is worried that unscrupulous business men would take advantage of the agreement to smuggle goods from other countries.

''The new border policy is commendable as it should foster increased trade and commerce between both countries but if care is not taken, it may cause us more troubles because the smugglers can use the Benin border to smuggle goods from elsewhere, and if not properly monitored, the menace of smuggling will be compounded to the detriment of local industries'' says Comrade Jaiyeola Olarewaju, NTMA Executive Secretary.

Already, secondhand textile materials from shirts, trousers, pants, T-shirts, bed sheets, window blinds, stockings, handbags and shoes are a common site at bend-down boutiques in Lagos. These and new but relatively cheap textiles from China, Indonesia and Malaysia are highly patronised by citizens because of the economic crunch. ''The purchasing power of most citizens is now directed to secondhand goods and this erodes the productive capacity of the Nigerian textile industry,'' says Mr. Petrus Afolabi, an economist.

He explained that the prices of local materials are higher because manufacturers have to produce at a very high cost since they have to depend on generators to power their machines as electricity from the public service are epileptic. ''The companies also have to have their own boreholes as there is no water while at the same time they have to pay taxes to the federal, state and local governments. All these are added to production cost of local materials,'' Afolabi said.

But while textile manufacturers continue to worry about the impact of secondhand clothes on the industry, those who patronise bend-down boutiques are enjoying their money's worth.

Mrs. Caroline Ojo, a headteacher of a college in Lagos confirms her preference for secondhand clothes market. ''I prefer to come to Yaba to select secondhand clothes than go to the boutiques most of which dry-clean and stock the same materials in their shops as new garments. What is available at the shops are also here and at a cheaper rate. Why must I waste my money going to the boutique for just one item when the money can buy me up to two or three of the same item at the secondhand market?'' Ojo asked.

Aremu blames the trend on government's economic reform programmes, which he said, had impoverished Nigerians and turned them to economic refugees. About 70 per cent of Nigeria's estimated population of 120 million live below the poverty line of one dollar per day, according to UN Human Development index.Aremu argued that the only way forward to Nigeria's industrialisation is to revitalise the manufacturing industry with appropriate policies, which will make production cost very low. He also wants local industrialists empowered through the granting of soft loans and tax incentives.

''Government must protect our industry and it cannot do this by signing a dubious trade agreement with a dubious economy like Benin's or do that by opening the country's market to secondhand goods, nor can it do so with disconnected and disjointed economic reforms,'' he said.