Textile gurus, Alhaji Said Dattijo Adhama and Comrade Issa Aremu have identified revival of the moribund textile industry as the fastest way of President Muhannadu Buhari’s mission of lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty.
Addressing a public lecture organised by the Kaduna state chapter of Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR), on ‘Revival of Industry in The North, The Textile Example’, Aremu, who is the General Secretary of National Union of Textile Garments and Tailoring Workers, called for creation of a ministry for the textile industry to underlay the importance of the textile industry and to what extent it could address Nigeria’s unemployment.
The Guest Speaker, Alhaji Dattijo Adhama, who is the Executive Chairman, Adhama Textiles and Garments Industry Ltd said, even with production of pants alone, the textile industry can turn around the economy of Nigeria. He said, with population size of 200 million, if three pairs of pants are produced for every Nigerian annually, it means, the textile industry will be producing 600 million pants annually.
While commending President Muhannadu Buhari and Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele, for the policy to compel the military and paramilitary agencies to patronise made in Nigeria textile, Adhama said, the policy must be implemented to the latter.
In his remarks, Comrade Aremu, said, “the new textile and garment policy is aimed at reviving the entire value chain of textile and cotton sector, and that is very huge, from cotton growing to spinning, weaving, finishing and garmenting. If this is well implemented, we will create close to 4 million direct job in the next five years
“Even with the depressed state of the textile industry, it employs close to 100,000 workers. The oil and gas, which has the ministry of petroleum to manage it employs just about 65,000 workers, because it is highly capital intensive, we have a whole ministry managing the iron and steel industry, which has just about 35 steel mills, meanwhile, when textile was in full production, we had close to 200 textile factories.
“For me, we need a ministry to manage the textile industry. It is the ministry that will drive the sector to save Nigeria the over N4 billion naira that Nigeria spends annually to import textile materials. If the vision of President Muhannadu Buhari to create 100 million job in Nigeria in the next 10 years is to be achieved, textile industry is the key,” he said
Earlier, chairman of NIPR, Bashir Adamu Chedi, said, the theme of the lecture, ‘Revival of Industry in The North, The Textile Example’, was carefully chosen to provoke thoughts towards the revival of the comatose industry.
