Moribund industrial estates in four northern states may soon bounce back to life again as the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI) has initiated efforts to revive the ginneries located in them.
The ginneries, which have gone comatose, were located in Gusau, Zamfara State, Funtua (Katsina State), Zaria in Kaduna State and Sokoto State. The four towns once served as the hub of the country’s textile industry.
The move to revive them was disclosed yesterday by the executive vice chairman, state/chief executive of NASENI, Prof. Mohammed Haruna.
Haruna said NASENI is prepared to partner with state governments, Small and Medium Scale entrepreneurs and other investors to revive the textile industry in the North.
He said the first step would be to revamp the collapsed ginneries in Gusua, Funtua, Zaria and Sokoto.
The NASENI boss said Nigerians have no basis to depend on garment making and tailoring experts from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Senegal, Mauritania and Cote D’Ivoire.
Prof Haruna said President Muhammadu Buhari has said that the nation will stop allowing foreigners to take over jobs which Nigerians should do.
Haruna spoke of the new initiative in Daura, Katsina State at the opening ceremony of skill development training and empowerment of 100 youths in modern methods of tailoring and fashion design.
He said, “Let me use this opportunity to declare that NASENI is willing to collaborate with SMEs, governments and individuals to revive the collapsed ginneries particularly of Gusau, Funtua, Zaria, Sokoto etc where I had previous experiences of been a service provider of factory and other facility maintenance in these industry’s glory years.
“The agency can jointly invest and or have a stake in a profit-sharing format to revive textile manufacturing in this region.”
The NASENI boss said Nigeria is out to stop outsourcing of garment making from the United Arab Emirates, Senegal, Mauritania and Cote D’Ivoire.
He said, “I have noted that recently some young men and women of northern Nigeria are outsourcing tailoring and garment making from Senegal, Mauritania, Cote D’Ivoire and even in the United Arab Emirates due to non-utilization of appropriate new and emerging tools in the occupation in Nigeria.
“NASENI under the chairmanship of President Muhammadu Buhari will not allow further loss of gainful employment of Nigerians in this occupation.
“This training therefore targets to improve the hands-on experience of the tailoring and design professionals in Katsina State with advanced training tools such as motorized straight sewing machine, computerised embroidery, weaving machine, pattern design, steam pressing among many more occupational resources required to undertake all kinds of simple and advanced cloths design and home fabrics to satisfy tastes, customers and attracts patronage.
“The 100 trainees in this exercise were carefully selected from those already in the field of fashion, tailoring, design and garment services who have been earning their living through these professions. They are expected to learn and train others.
“It is therefore ‘train-the-trainer’ exercise. The start-up equipment to be distributed to participants at the end of this training and the ones yet to arrive are adequate to carry out multifunctional services and compete favourably with the foreign service providers.
He said there are plans to construct a modern vocational training centre in Daura Katsina State
While displaying the Certificate of Occupancy of the land he collected from the Katsina State Government for the project, he said the training center will help to upgrade passion and existing standards in fashion designs and tailoring
He said: “Tailoring and fashion design vocations are among top earning and profitable occupations. The missing link that is essential is the application of modern tools, techniques, creativity, and capacity to deploy modern design techn
