Sad Story Of North’s Textiles Industry

After N100 billion naira federal government intervention in the textiles industry, Nigeria’s second biggest employer of labour after the federal government is not only in ruins but has recorded 3 million job losses countrywide and 2, 800 deaths of workers in 14 years, this is just in one city alone.
Nigeria’s textiles factory is said to have employed about 3 million Nigerians in direct job from the production of cotton to the weaving, spinning and printing of textile materials. The industry also contributed hugely to the revenue bases of governments across the country and created hundreds of thousands of indirect jobs to Nigerians.

So far, about 2, 800 workers of Kaduna Textile Ltd (KTL), Arewa Textiles Plc, United Nigerian Textile Plc, Supertex, Nortex Nigerian Ltd and Finetex Nigerian Ltd all located in Kaduna have so far lost their lives waiting the payment of their entitlements in the last 14 years.
The national embarrassment continued even with successive administrations moving on without blinking an eye to the decaying infrastructure that took hundreds of billions to install.
The whole span of textile production in Nigeria is now a cold grave yard of machines. Worst hit are the northern states that heavily relied on the now moribund. Like a wreckage of the Second World War Nazi Germany machine factory, all but a few textiles factory northern states are at mercy of corrosion.
At the peak of operation, 8 factories in Kaduna, reports say employed over 30, 000. There were about 18 factories in Kano with as many as 120, 000 jobs. In Lagos, about 60 factories with 250, 000 jobs and textile cities that include Guzau, Portharcourt, Aba, Asaba are said to have employed as many as 25, 000 workers.
Like a plague that is incurable, the glory days of textiles came to a painful end 14 years ago when most of the factories were shut down due to factors beyond their control.
The pathetic state of Arewa Textiles Plc and Kaduna Textile Limited is worrisome as the factories have been over taken by grass. The roof of factory keeps collapsing daily exposing the multibillion naira machines to rains and corrosion.
LEADERSHIP Weekend learnt that men of the Nigeria police are having a herculean task keeping the remains of the equipment at the site safe as vandals are carting away machine parts on a daily basis.
A resident of Kakuri in Kaduna told LEADERSHIP Weekend that several thieves have been gunned down by the police for attempting to steal vital machine parts from moribund Arewa Textiles.
The sad situation is also seen at other factories suchas Nortex, SuperTex, Unitex and Chellco Industries within the Kaduna industrial area.
At the height of the boom of textiles in northern cities of Kaduna, Kano, Funtua and Gusau not a few young people turn down jobs in banks, civil service and interestingly oil firms for textile garment jobs.
LEADERSHIP Weekend findings revealed that some of the workers of the already moribund textiles factories turned down job offers by Chiyoda, the Japanese firm contracted to build the Kaduna Refinery in the late 1970s and early 80s because of the irresistible incomes textile jobs offered.
A decision many regretted two decades later even to their graves as the fortunes of the factories turned for the worst.
Since 2002 most of the textiles factories in the north were out of business leaving thousands of its workforces without a job. The ripple effect of the downturn of event at these factories was a tsunami of a sort leaving thousands of suppliers, food vendors and traders with nothing to fall back to.
The circle of grief was encompassing as the impact on the immediate community was well felt in all parts of northern Nigeria.
“My husband died and left me with six children that I am taking care of. My husband and I usually farm for people and when he died I continued the work as a hired farmer. I break firewood for people as well. But the money I make cannot take care of me and my family,” said Mary Adah, a widow whose husband died out of frustration for working for 34 years without an entitlements.
Another Widow who lost her husband as a result of hypertension, Mary Audu said “my Children and I survives on the little money I make from washing plates at a restaurant. The money I get from the effort cannot sustain the family. Two of my children have dropped out of school because I can’t continue paying their school fees and there is nobody to help me.” And so the story of the thousands affected continues.
Textiles union leaders under the Coalition of Closed Unpaid Textiles Workers, Kaduna State chapter, posited that over 2,800 workers of the shutdown textiles companies and family members have so far lost their lives.
Chairman of the Union, Comrade Wordam Simdik said since 2002 to 2004 when KTL, Nortex and Finetex and Arewa Textiles were shut down, death has not stop visiting workers and family members of the closed industries.
According to Simdik, “many living members of the coalition have also developed one sickness or the other, which are likely to lead to more deaths if nothing is urgently done to salvage the situation.”
He said, the 600, 000 people have since been rendered jobless now live in penury, anger and pains.
Simdik said most children of the former textiles workers are roaming the streets like beggars, while often times they get involved in anti-social vices and other criminal activities. Many of the ex-workers have also been driven from their homes by their landlords, while others got divorced by their wives.

Difficult Operating Conditions For Funtua Textile
Arguably, one apt way to describe the Funtua Textile Industry, the only textile industry still in active production in the north, is to say that it is surviving against all odds.
The Funtua textile was established in 1978 essentially to make effective use of the cotton which is grown in large quantity at the Funtua region of the state and importantly, contribute to the growth of the economy.
Situated in the ancient and indeed, historically relevant city of Funtua from where it derived its name, the Funtua textiles has contributed to the economic development of the state in more ways than one.
Funtua is cotton growing region and it was a general believe that having the textile industry located in Funtua as it rightly is, will help greatly in effective use of the cotton aside from further boosting the economy of the area, and the state at large. Interestingly, the Funtua Textile is the only integrated industry in Katsina State as it starts from the ginnery to finish product. The company purchases cotton from the merchants, gin it, turn to yarn, turn it to fabric, dye it and sell or sell the fabric for other materials.
It was observed that the major products of the company are T.C Rolls, Dye-Shirting and Gray Baft which is often sold to the sister company, UNTL in Lagos.
It has initial staff strength of 1500 which grows up to around 2500 but the current staff strength is 750. A visitor to the company which is located at the Mairuwa area of Funtua will no doubt marvelled at the zeal at which workers and indeed, management of the company carry out their work.
LEADERSHIP Weekend observed that after four decades of existence, difficult operating conditions has continued to impede successful growth of the company even as its continued existence as a viable business entity is being threatened.
Head of human resource, Funtua textile, Ibrahim Muazu Isa told LEADERSHIP Weekend that the company which is in “dire strait in that there is no market for products, our machines are obsolete and we have problems of power, multiple taxation and other teething challenges”.
Isa further said “but in spite of all these, we have been in production as we have never shut for one day right from our inception”. He confirmed to our correspondent that initially, the company produces twelve thousand metric tonnes of gray baft but at the moment, the production capacity is less than seven thousand metric tonnes and attributed the obvious backward movement of the company to harsh operating conditions.
“There is the issue of smuggling, low purchasing power because our material is basically meant for the poor people, there are the issues of power, water and spare parts and the banks are not helping matters,” Isa said.
Asked if the company receives support from government, Isa said “yes we have got indirect support from government, through Bank of Industry” but expressed the fear that “with the change of fortune, we may not be able to pay back the BOI loan unless we are assisted”.
The textile is jointly owned by private individuals, northern states and Chinese partners. The whole northern state governors have shares; some individuals of northern extraction are also shareholders in the company.
Smuggling and insecurity affects the company in no small measure as according to the manager, the company’s markets from Niger, Cameroun, Cotonou has receded as people are not coming to buy our goods from neighbouring countries any more. “We only rely on few companies that we supply them the Mattress cover and our parent company, UNTL Lagos which we supply with Gray Baft”.

Kano Textile Workers In N250 million law suit
Gaskiya Textile industry Kano has the unfortunate story of laying off over 5, 000 workers in the last decade. It didn’t live to the dream of its owner and lenders, the defunct Bank of the North. Gaskiya textile owned by late Kano business mogul, late Alhaji Nababa Badamasi.
In the early 1980s, Gaskiya textile industry was commissioned by the then Nigeria’s Head of State who is the current President of the country, Muhammad Buhari.
The textile industry acquired bank of the north loan of over N80 million for the establishment of the textile industry which employed over 5, 000 workers.
Ali Baba is the textile union secretary of the north west region, he told LEADERSHIP Weekend that in the early 80s there were not less than 40 textile industries in Kano, but as at late 1990s and now there are just a few in operation.
He confirmed that the present textile industries are reduced to nothing but producers of customised fabrics for politicians, royalties and well to do for wedding ceremonies.
The workers however noted that the 5, 000 workers laid off by Gaskiya textile industry have their entitlements amounting to N250 million owed by the heirs of the moribund facility.
The union secretary also said the Kano textile companies contributed less in the multi billion naira textile markets in Kano, saying Chinese textile traders among other outside textile industrialists contributed almost 99 percent of the textile products sold.
Our check at the defunct Gaskiya textile revealed an appalling story of the big place as the factory is now a shadow of itself or as others called it ‘ghost town’.
LEADERSHIP Weekend observed that the administrative buildings have become den of small and big rats as well as snakes especially at the rainy season.
Also observed was the almost half a kilometre long factory store which contains varieties of machines, metal hooks and hangs rotting away.
At the Dakata industrial area, the famous Universal textile company bear similar look with its neighbour, Gaskiya textile. All other known textile companies at notorious Dakata, Bompai and Sharada industrial areas were no more operating for over ten years.
Musa Muhammad was the former employee of both Universal and Gaskiya textile told LEADERSHIP Weekend that among areas such Bela, Dakata and Badawa in Kano in the heydays of textile companies with thousands of factory workers is now a ghost town.
In 2013 the President of Nigerian Union of Textile and Garment Workers of Nigeria, Oladele Hunsu said the Federal Government’s N100 billion intervention fund had not revived the textile industry due to policy somersaults and poor infrastructure.
However, speaking on the issue, the former Minister of Trade and Investment, Olusegun Aganga defended the then federal government that about 8,070 jobs have been saved through the disbursement of the N100 billion cotton textile garment intervention fund.
Reports say only 38 textile firms had so far benefitted from the fund which only little can be seen. This has brought the question of corruption in the disbursement of the said fund to the ailing factories to the front burner.
The federal government in an attempt to revive the collapsed industries, instituted N100 billion Cotton, Textile and Garment (CTG) bailout fund in 2009 which is managed and disbursed by the Bank of Industry (BOI), but till date however, the bailout fund is yet to bring the textile mills out of the woods.
Not a few union leaders lamented to LEADERSHIP Weekend that the intervention fund has been problematic all along as none of the shutdown textiles which desperately needed the money to inject life into their factories ever got the money because loan conditions are not favourable to the closed mills.
According to a report released by the National Union of Textile Garment and Tailoring Workers of Nigeria (NUTGTWN), 26 out of the 36 states in the country grow cotton of both long and short stable lengths.
Nigeria has the potential of producing 1.2 billion meters of cloth per annum at 6 meters per capital. In the West African sub region, Nigeria is a natural textile destination point in the world. The industry has the potential to create 3 million direct jobs.
In the 70s and up to early 80s, Nigeria was the largest producer of different range of textile, garment and carpet products surpassed in production only by Egypt and South Africa.
In May 2015, Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai then as governor-elect took a tour of some of the textiles factories in Kaduna and promised that the APC led federal government will ensure full implementation of the ban on smuggled textile materials into the country identified as one of the factors that led to the collapse of textiles in Nigeria.