Author : Esther .C. Iyire
This topic reveals the status of the Nigerian textile industry, the challenges it faces and proffered solutions. How these solutions can improve economic growth and influence the international market. And, how the textile industry affect the fashion industry.
Globalization simply means to make global or worldwide in scope or application. It is a process that enables financial and investment markets to operate internationally, largely as a result of deregulation and improved communication. Textile; a cloth, especially one manufactured by weaving or knitting. (….The free dictionary app).
There are three basic needs of a man; food, clothing and shelter. These needs affect the world as a whole as they influence its economic growth. The present Nigerian government has chosen to take baby steps in providing these basic needs as they have gotten involved in the agriculture of the state. Naturally, this would cover the food aspect of the basic needs but should also digress into the textile industry as the raw materials needed to produce textiles (fabrics) are agriculturally nurtured.
The most obvious feature of the material culture of Africa is cloth. Studies show that textile production in Africa dates back to as far as the 9th century as woven fibre pieces were found in Nigeria. Many African societies weave cloth from locally grown cotton. It is very seldom that textile pieces are produced by just one process and when one considers the skills involved; hand execution and craft in mostly rural circumstances, one has to commend and admire the skills and participation involved. By handicraft methods, Nigerians annually produced 35million meters of fabric.
The raw materials needed to produce these textiles can be found in Nigeria and many other African societies and they include cotton, oil, rubber etc.
Overtime Nigeria has become a large textile market as she has embraced textile reflection on culture and lifestyle.
The textile industry in Nigeria moves slowly and is hardly focused on because it is said to have already collapsed and little or no efforts made to revive it have proven futile. Unfortunately, the Ankara we all embrace has successfully infiltrated and dominated our markets even though not originally produced by us.
The Ankara was originally manufactured for the Indonesian textile market by the Dutch but by mistake or design, it has managed to capture the interests of Africans as we now identify with it. Also Vlisco, the luxury ankara brand is originally produced in holland.
Even though some of these textiles are currently being produced in Africa, the manufacturing companies aren’t owned by Africans. These textiles have dominated since the 19th century making the the few African textiles seeming inferior and less productive.Why do we identify with these fabrics anyway? They seem African because they are popular to Africa. “An image of African fabric isn’t necessarily, authentically and wholly African”. Yinka Shonibare
The growth of the textile was apparent in the 50’s -60’s. In 1997, the government lifted the ban on fabric importation.
By 2002, over 60 textile companies had shut down. 70,000 workers out of 136,000 were out of jobs.
These loses were due to problems faced by the Nigerian textile industry which include;
⁃ Stagnation (electricity, environment, competition (China 80%) etc)
⁃ Inability to hire casual workers (persons with no knowledge/experience, lack of interest, salaries etc)
⁃ Inflation (dollar rates affects prices of goods)
⁃ Bureaucracy (decisions taken by state officials rather than elected personnels/representatives)
⁃ Smuggling
⁃ Security (Insurgencies)
⁃ Lack of funds (expenses on factory supplies and infrastructure, maintenance)
⁃ Unsold stocks (supply exceeds demand )
In 2009, with efforts to revive the textile industry, the Federal government pumped in about a 100,000,000,000 into the textile industry with no results afterwards.