New textile policy and livestock development plan are viable paths to re-industrialisation
From the National Economic Council (NEC) has come a double-whammy that could well drive our much-needed re-industrialisation: the Cotton, Textile and Garment Development Board and the Nigeria Livestock Growth Acceleration Strategy.
Actually, there was also a third leg: the Green Imperative Project (GIP), which focus is food security, via mechanised farming; as the garment/livestock policy is adding value to crop and animal farming to fire re-industrialisation. The three are excellent proposals, begging for excellent execution.
Vice President Kashim Shettima, who chairs NEC, which has as members all the state governors, captured the exciting policies with rather apt words: “Our goal is not just regulation,” he enthused. “It is a revival. This is our opportunity to re-industrialise, to empower communities, and to restore pride in local production.”
Well put! But the government must walk its talk. Indeed, it’s “condemned” to walking its talk, if it must provide jobs for the thundering numbers of jobless youths; and avert a social time bomb from mass poverty and unrealised expectations.
The Cotton, Textiles and Garment Board policy alone is expected to unlock some US$ 90 billion to the local economy in value, by 2035 — that’s over the next 10 years. Textiles was a great employer of labour here. So, we await the specific policy tactics the government is putting forward to realise this goal, and return to glorious old days.
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This is more so when this is not the first textiles revamp policy intervention by the Federal Government. There was one under President Olusegun Obasanjo, which really did not make much mark. Whatever worked against that must be x-rayed and factored into this new plan. Otherwise, 2035 might just be another mirage, after the initial excitement.
But the funding strategy for the Cotton Textiles and Garment Board — the Textile Import Levy, which the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) collects — is brilliant. Let those who do free textiles imports today fund Nigeria’s future textiles self-sufficiency! Still, the government must secure that fund by ensuring zero-sleaze by NCS collection agents.
The government must also address the basics — mass cultivation of cotton nation-wide. If indeed cotton can grow in 34 of Nigeria’s 36 states, then the country has no business just growing 13, 000 metric tons yearly. The cotton board should partner the Bank of Agriculture to develop special credit packages to boost cotton production.
The Nigeria Livestock Growth Acceleration Strategy, which NEC also endorsed, is no less critical and strategic. This newly tweaked policy, by the new Federal Ministry of Livestock Development, is under the aegis of the old National Livestock Transformation Plan (2018-2028), which the Buhari Presidency had put in place.
For too long, the livestock value chain had laboured under the hysteria of “Fulani herdsmen” — a media blanket that references notorious herder criminals as the entire legitimate animal husbandry trade.
So, it’s high time livestock, a vibrant sector in which every part of the country can invest, regained its job-creating, revenue-generating and export-focused essence. It’s all about adding agricultural value on the livestock front. To achieve this goal, however, ranching is critical. That should, with time, eliminate farmer-herder clashes.
But while re-industrialisation is excellent policy goal, food security in the instant is even more pressing. Which is why the impending formal launch of the National Agribusiness Policy Mechanism, under which GIP is anchored, makes eminent sense.
Cleared of all policy jargons, it means a positive policy aggression to return food production, and security against hunger, to the front burner where it belongs. High food inflation is still a sad reality; and local rice activism of the Muhammadu Buhari years appears waning, with the influx of foreign rice, with suspect nutritional value compared with local rice.
More worrying: price of local rice is rising. But local production of food, in vast quantity and ready quality, holds the key to food security and eventual economic development and prosperity. GIP must tackle these rising food crises — and fast too.
Whatever happens on this tri-agricultural policy front must be done in close attention to fixing electricity. Again — and this is worth restating: re-industrialising, with the current power reality, remains a pipe dream.
