The Lost Glory of Nigerian Manufacturing Industry: A Tale of Economic Ruin

Many Nigerians remember the past with nostalgia. Not a few look back with sadness at what has become of Nigeria. Neither are they hopeful when they ruminate on the path the country is treading. They remember the times many companies were operating in the country and bestrode our economic and social terrains like happy, proud brides. There were many things of repute to point at as veritable signs of economic prosperity.

Nigerians had lots of names they knew and benefited from. Regardless of the fact that the Yakubu Gowon and his junta were an uncontrolled spendthrift, many more companies were still trooping into the country to establish their presence and reap from the booming economy of the young country. That period must have been when the foundation for today's quandary of Nigeria was laid. We watched our flower wilt and have never taken concrete actions to reverse its death and decay.

Those who grew up to know Bata, Lennards, and some other shoe brands would remember how much these brands meant to parents who had children in schools. Bata was one brand that had some of the most impressive television advertisements. We loved to watch them. There are no more such companies in the country today. However, we have retailers who just import to sell.

Batteries -- both automotive and domestic -- were manufactured in Nigeria in our recent past. Berec Batteries was a household name in the country. Their product, as a layman, wasn't just useful for the transistor radio that many families owned, it was also useful for our torch. Those who could afford it used the popular R2 Carbon batteries to power their cassette players and made music at camps and parties. The size AA and AAA batteries -- although mostly alkaline now are still used to power remote control devices. We have graduated to the era of lithium and ion batteries. We no longer live in the world of those messy batteries we had then. Agreed. The point, however, is that those batteries were manufactured here in Nigeria. They had 'Made in Nigeria' written on them.

In Ibadan, one of the saddest memories for some of us as Ibadan boys is the exit of many manufacturing concerns from the legendary city. The Oyo State capital is the home of many firsts and this didn't exclude industrial concerns that gave hundreds, if not thousands of people jobs. Exide Batteries was so popular that they had a football club that competed in the Nigerian football scene. Many would remember the exploits of Exide Sparkers in the city. Their TV commercial was top notch, and people still remember the song that accompanied that advert.

Michelin Tyres was also here. That firm manufactured tyres in this country and at that time, it was not possible to hear freely that people would buy cars and fit Tokunbo (Belgium) tyres in them. It was unheard of, and it might have been an anathema to those who owned such property. It was one of the brands that laboured tenaciously and fought vigorously to remain in the Nigerian market. It tried to ride the Nigerian economic storm and sail laboriously through Nigeria's unforgiving economic waters until the company finally gave up in the early days of our current democratic experience. As a young reporter in Rivers State, I still remember my disappointment and indeed, sadness when the head of the corporate affairs department of Michelin Nigeria Limited in Port Harcourt, Michael Utodio, said emphatically that Michelin would leave Nigeria. He cited the unfavourable economic weather.

Is Dunlop still here? No. The company also relocated from Nigeria owing to the same unfavourable economic conditions which Michelin also cited. In a November 2019 report, The Sunday Sun quoted Chris Uzoma Okolo, a leader in African Tyre Village in the International Trade Fair Complex in Lagos, as lamenting the exit of those tyre manufacturers from Nigeria. According to Okolo, Michelin and Dunlop left Nigeria because they complained that most of their capital was used to generate electricity. "The vacuum their exit created has not been filled. We are still pained by their exit. The worst of all is that they relocated to Ghana. Even now, the condition that made them relocate out of Nigeria has not been addressed."

One elderly Ekiti friend spoke of the time Oodua Textile was thriving in Ado Ekiti. He was close to tears as he reminisced and regurgitated the times he said he would go to work and return with that proud assurance of a father with a steady income. Today, a large number of Ekiti populace only knows the neighborhood called Textile in Ado Ekiti without the knowledge that indeed, there was a thriving textile factory in that part of the town.

Modern Ceramics in Umuahia is also one of the relics of a glorious past. Golden Guinea Breweries in the same Umuahia has been 'coming and going these several seasons' like John Pepper Clark's Abiku. We heard the story of Asaba Textile through the answers we got when we asked what AsabaTex meant. Each town in this country would surely have sad reminiscences of some faded glory.

The loss of such legacies started at a time in our national life which we do not really know. The loss of these manufacturing concerns and its attendant impact on our economy is what was referred to as the 'Great Depression' by the Americans. Theirs lasted for a decade and President Franklin Roosevelt piloted the country through it. In Nigeria, we can't even remember at what point the rain started to beat us. Our economic woes just blossomed over the years. All that can be said is that our economic downturn has led us to the lamentations of today's Nigeria.

Stories of economic ruins abound everywhere you turn in the country. Is Nigeria not in a depression -- social and economic? We went through two recessions during the eight lamentable years of Buhari. What is Nigeria experiencing now? Isn't recession in the same league as depression? With what Nigerians are experiencing with our petroleum industry and the monetary policy of the administration, which of the 'sessions' are we in now? Recession or depression? Experts cannot possibly convince that there is nothing of either going on in Nigeria.

When did our depression start? How long have we been battling depression? When compared to the 1929 to 1939 period that Americans referred to as the Great Depression, are we not suffering a worse fate in today's Nigeria? With our frightening negative economic and statistical figures, are we not in something worse than the Americans' Great Depression?

Franklin D Roosevelt was elected president of the United States in 1932 amid that American economic crisis christened the Great Depression. At the time Roosevelt took the oath of office in January 1933, a quarter of the United States' labor force was unemployed with many citizens in abject poverty, and investment had collapsed. In the simplest of terms, the American Great Depression was the financial and industrial slump of the country in 1929. Several sources affirm that this economic crisis was conquered by 1939.

There are fears that the thinking in some quarters is to segregate the country just like the apartheid time -- between the rich and the poor, and we are almost there. This apartheid would provide cheap Labor for the rich while the poor would make do with whatever crumbs they get from their master. Then, they would defend their masters stoically with everything they have received from their masters.

Source of content: OOO News 2023-07-22 News

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