Nigeria's fashion and furniture industries face serious risk if the Senate pushes through with its proposed textile import ban. The Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise raised the alarm this week.
CPPE leadership warned that blocking foreign fabric imports could cripple sectors worth roughly N17 trillion combined. Millions of jobs hang in the balance, they said.
Last week, the Senate called for an outright ban on imported textile materials. Lawmakers wanted to protect Nigeria's struggling textile manufacturing sector and boost local cotton production.
Senator Sunday Katung from Kaduna South sponsored the motion. Several colleagues from different parties backed the push to revive the Kaduna-Kano industrial corridor.
The goal sounds reasonable on paper. But Dr.
Muda Yusuf, CPPE's chief executive, disagrees sharply with the approach.
"The proposed measure is unlikely to achieve its intended objectives," Yusuf told reporters on Saturday. He cautioned that downstream industries depend heavily on imported fabrics.
Nigeria's fashion, tailoring and garment sector alone is valued at N10 trillion. It employs roughly 10 million people across the country.
Local designers and tailors add substantial value through their work. They handle everything from design to branding to embroidery and retailing.
In many cases, he noted, the value created locally actually exceeds the cost of fabric inputs. An import ban would devastate these micro and small businesses.
Production costs would spike immediately. Consumer choice would shrink, and thousands of enterprises would struggle to survive.
Furniture makers face similar threats from any fabric import restrictions. Nigeria's furniture and interior design industry is worth approximately N7 trillion.
Upholstered pieces, office furniture, hotel furnishings and mattresses all rely on imported textiles. A supply cut would drive up production expenses significantly.
The real problem isn't imports flooding the market, Yusuf argued. Nigeria's textile manufacturers struggle with deeper, structural issues instead.
High electricity costs cripple production. Credit is prohibitively expensive for most manufacturers.
Infrastructure remains poor across manufacturing hubs. Logistics bottlenecks delay shipments and increase inefficiency.
Most local mills use outdated equipment. Smuggling undercuts legitimate producers, and government policies shift unpredictably.
Imported fabrics already face stiff tariffs between 35 and 45 percent combined. Yet these levies haven't made local textile makers competitive.
Yusuf stressed the core issue clearly: production economics matter more than import competition. Fixing the real problems requires different solutions entirely.
