By Victor AhiumaYoung

NIGERIA Labour congress, NLC, has decried the declining fortune of the nation’s Textile sector, querying the utilization of over N150billion Federal Government intervention in the industry. 

President of NLC, Joe Ajaero, at the 13th quadrennial National Delegates’ Conference, NDC, of the National Union of Textile, Garment and Tailoring Workers of Nigeria, NUTGTWN, in Abuja, said no nation jokes with its Textile sector because of its value chain and the great potentials for Job creation both directly and indirectly. 

He recalled that the Textile sector employed millions of Nigerians in the over 200 fully fledged Textile companies that dotted the landscape proudly utilizing nation’s cotton to produce various textile products consumed internally and exported to neighboring countries but the International monetary Fund, IMF, and World Bank came and they all went down the drain.  

Among others, Ajaero said Textile Union “was heavily impacted by the policies of the twin altars – the IMF and World Bank. The neoliberal “marketist” philosophy opened our economy to all manners of unhealthy competition via imports. Finished textile wears and materials poured into our country and this sounded the death knell for our local textile industries that were struggling with power and increasing cost of imported inputs and production machinery. A vibrant sector which would have served as the basis for national industrialization began to wane. Companies shut down their operations. We cannot count the number of Textile factories that closed shop and lay-off thousands of workers all around Nigeria. Our nation is still reeling from the shock.

“Nonetheless, we have witnessed publicized efforts made by past governments to resuscitate the sector but it does appear that the louder the noise of doing something to revive the sector, the more it goes under.

“We have witnessed the N100billion and the recent N50billion Textile Revival Implementation Committee (TRIC) to revamp and revive the Cotton, Textile and Garment   CTG Sub-sector.  One wonders what has happened to all these funds voted for revamping the sector. Were the funds ever accessed or were they mismanaged or misapplied?

“Nigerians would want to know what happened and why the sector is still struggling despite the purported injection of these funds. There is no nation that jokes with its Textile sector because of its value chain and the great potentials for Job creation both directly and indirectly. 

“We still remember that the Textile sector employed millions of Nigerians in the over 200 fully fledged Textile companies that dotted the landscape proudly utilizing our Cotton to produce various textile products  that were consumed internally and exported to neighboring countries but IMF and World Bank came and they all went down the drain.”