By Victor Tunde Oso

Group Managing Director, Sona Group of Industries, Ajai Musaddi, says import restrictions task local producers to improve and increase capacity Musaddi maintains if government will not ban those items, which the economy has capacity to produce, Nigeria will continue to be dumping ground for foreign products. Excerpts:

Musaddi

Federal Government’s agric policy

The agricultural sector of Nigeria, which remains a major employer in the past, has suffered years of neglect as Nigeria has spent decades relying on oil to provide much-needed foreign exchange and government revenue.

There may be lots of people working on farms but a lack of investment has led to low productivity. In addition, not all available agricultural land is being used. It is estimated that just over a third of available land is being cultivated. Following a big drop in the oil price in recent years, the country has renewed its interest in agriculture. If this enthusiasm can be converted into greater investment then the country should be able to produce more food.

Therefore, the Federal Government is on the right track to be encouraging everyone—young or old—to take up farming as an occupation so that the Nigerian economy can be less dependent on crude oil proceeds. Government should in fact allocate a higher percentage of the annual budget to agriculture in order to boost agricultural production.

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A country that can feed itself has solved more than half of its problems. That there are no immediate results should actually challenge government more because it is a long-term investment and if it is sustained, it would lead to real growth for the economy.  The Federal government should also revamp the agricultural institutes by privatizing them since it has been proved in business that privatization of companies is the best way to efficiency and effectiveness in management.

Apart from funding, the local farmers that presently constitutes the largest mass of agricultural production in the country should be encourage through direct supply of fertilizers, improved seedlings et-cetera. The farmers should equally be educated on the advantages of improved seedlings and how to use them by the agricultural extension workers.

Good that state governments are also joining the agric revolution train.  Government should equally grant the local farmers agricultural credit facilities through the agricultural banks located across the country by making the various traditional leaders to stand as surety for the loans to make the recovery easy.

To ensure long sustainability, agricultural marketing board can also be resuscitated to determine price of agricultural products in order to boost agriculture and encourage more people, particularly the private sector to go into large scale farming.

This administration has always held that Nigeria must be able to produce what it consumes and consume what it produces. In other words, this administration says it wants Nigeria to attain what is called food security or food sufficiency. The way to go is wholesale support for the agric and agro-allied sector.

Import restrictions on food items

There are still some basic food items, which are wholly Nigerian that the Federal Government needs to completely ban. One of these is biscuits and confectionery products. There are competent local manufacturers in the country who can meet consumers’ demands. Government should look at the production and consumption.

Continued importation of biscuits and confectioneries are undermining the production capacity of local companies. This has not enabled these companies to produce at full capacity. In fact they are producing at below 50% capacity because of continued importation of biscuits and confectionery products, which local industries have capacity to produce.

Furthermore, the ban on products like rice and others is good. If government will not ban such items, which our local economy has capacity to produce, Nigeria will continue to be dumping ground for foreign products. The ban too would challenge the local producers to improve and increase capacity. For instance, a Biscuits producer can look at his production at 100 tons per day and if he’s able to sell it, he would be encouraged to push up his capacity to 150 tons or 200 tons per day.  This is what has been affecting us (Sona) too in the biscuits production.

We have had to delay the extension of our 7 biscuit lines to 12-16 lines, which we are however, going to embark upon in the next two-three years, especially as we have implicit confidence in the Nigerian economy.

Note that local products are fresh, new and healthier also its improves the body immune system because they hit the market immediately they are out of production line, whereas imported products, especially Biscuits or any other food items, which have short lifespan, could even expire before they reach our shores. These, apparently are reasons why government may be restricting importation of food items.

Local products competitive in quality with imported ones

Nigeria has been an import dependent nation for as long as anyone can remember. We import milk, rice, stock fish, vegetable oil, slippers, canned fish, tomato paste, refined petrol and even toothpick! I understand this has left President Muhammadu Buhari very upset and displeased; and rightly so. Come to think of it, Nigerian companies have come of age.

There’s no justification for our lack of confidence in local items produced in this country. With tenacity of purpose, appropriate technology, including smart technology and ruggedness, local companies can compete with their counterparts in Europe and advanced countries.

Many, like Sona, have invested a lot of resources in our workers through training and retraining, many, who have been trained in Europe, Asia and in the United States, to ensure they compete favourably with their counterparts anywhere in the world. Added to these are investment in acquisition of the latest technologies in equipment, design and production.

All these are translated in products, which can compete with their European counterparts. As we speak, Sona biscuits are stocked by big supermarkets all over the country. Nigerians should be proud of goods manufactured locally. Government had in recent years embarked on an advocacy campaign that emphasised the ‘made-in-Nigeria’ brand.

I wonder why this campaign stopped. Government needs to discourage people from always looking for imported goods, as some of the imported items are actually of low quality. A product that is made in Nigeria to the highest standard should make us proud, as opposed to longing for a made in China product.

Sona Group’s staying power in over 30 years of operation

The key is in our diversified and deliberate corporate policies of our well-trained manpower, local sourcing of our raw materials and deliberate recycled policy. The only way for us at Sona to overcome the menace of low capacity utilisation is to ensure that we stick to usage of local raw materials and inputs for producing our products.

For instance we are using 100% sorghum, which we source locally and government has to be more supportive for enhancing the tariff rates for the other Raw materials like malted Barley being imported against Sorghum usages. Again, we are guided by the principle that the employee who receives the necessary training is more able to perform in their job, because the training will avail the employees a greater understanding of their responsibilities within their role, and in turn build their confidence.

This confidence will enhance their overall performance and this can only benefit the company. This has ensured that our workers are competent and on top of changing industry standards to help us remain as a leader and strong competitor within our industry.

As a foremost conglomerate in Nigeria with up to 10 subsidiaries, cutting across diverse sectors and making significant investments in each, one of Sona’s subsidiaries, Shongai Packaging Industries Ltd is a major player in plastic packaging manufacturing; producing several domestic and industrial products including injection moulded plastic furniture, storage crates, basins and buckets, rugged crates for beer & beverage, cosmetic jars, plastic pallets, among others.

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Owing to these extensive ranges of plastic products and the desire to facilitate a healthy environment in Nigeria, we actively engage in plastics recycling. The plastic wastes are processed into raw materials, which are then used to manufacture various plastic products. One of the pivotal reasons for the company’s investment in multiple recycling plants is to enable the efficacious eradication of plastic waste pollution in Nigeria.

We maintain that a clean and safe environment for the citizens should be the priority of every manufacturing company in the country. Our goal is to promote public health through our recycling, which goes beyond production as we see it as an avenue to add considerable value to Nigeria as a nation.

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