Institute Demands Recognition, Says Printing Creates 4m Direct Jobs

The Chartered Institute of Professional Printers of Nigeria (CIPPON) has urged the federal government to formally recognise printing as a manufacturing sub-sector and grant urgent duty relief on printing raw materials and machinery.

The president and chairman of the Governing Council of CIPPON, Koko T. Clement, in a statement yesterday in Gusau, said the industry directly employs over four million skilled and unskilled workers, making it the second largest employer of labour in Nigeria after agriculture.

“When the households and dependants sustained by this direct workforce are factored in, the number of Nigerians whose livelihood rests on the printing value chain surpasses 50 million people across all the 36 states and the FCT,” he said.

“Printing is the industrial process of converting raw materials into finished goods through imagination, innovation and heavy machinery. Nigeria’s own tax law and national statistics already recognise this. What we are asking is for our tariff and duty administration to catch up with what our own laws already say,” Clement said.

Clement explained that under the United Nations ISIC Revision 4, printing and reproduction of recorded media falls within Section C: Manufacturing, the same classification used by the National Bureau of Statistics. He added that Nigeria’s Tax Act also classifies printing and allied practitioners under manufacturing and publishing.

He said the scale of the industry is visible in major printing hubs such as Somolu in Lagos, UTC in Abuja, Printers’ Village in Kaduna, and the Kano Native Authority Press, where bulk chemicals and paper reels run through Heidelberg presses and high-speed flexo rollers.

Clement said benefits of granting the concession include lower-cost books and packaging, restored capacity utilisation, preserved employment, and a broader tax base.

The CIPPON boss pledged that the industry would revert to locally produced paper and inputs as soon as domestic production meets requirements.

He cited the 2023 General Elections, where election materials were produced 100 per cent locally by Nigerian printers and delivered nationwide without disruption.

“An industry that delivered 100 per cent of the nation’s election materials without a single hitch in 2023, and has pledged to do even better in 2027, has more than proven it can be trusted with the nation’s educational books and materials as well,” he said.

CIPPON is calling on the Federal Ministry of Finance, CBN, Bank of Industry, MAN and NBS to accord printing its rightful place in Nigeria’s industrialisation agenda.

“This is not a request for a favour. It is a request for consistency. Printing is manufacturing,” Clement said.