By Ralph Omololu Agbana.
Agro-economist, retired banker and politician, Chief Folorunsho Daniyan is the new President of Nigerian Textiles Manufacturers Association (NTMA).
His election as the President of the association was ratified during its 15th annual general meeting held in Kaduna, recently. He succeeded erstwhile president, Mrs Grace Adereti.
Daniyan is presently Head of Corporate Affairs of United Nigeria Textiles Limited (UNTL), the biggest textiles group in Nigeria, on whose platform he was elected the NTMA president.
The Daniyan family has a long history with textiles, the late former Minister of National Planning, Chief Silas Daniyan having served as Executive Director for UNTL and Nichemtex. Industries.
Chief Folorunsho Daniyan had his primary school education at Capital School, Kaduna, proceeded to Barewa College, Zaria, Federal Government College, Kaduna and University of Ife, Ile-Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) where he bagged Bachelor’s degree in Agriculture Economics.
He worked with Afribank as Area Agriculture Officer to appraise agriculture loan requests and management of same covering present northwest; Premier Commercial Bank as Head of credit Administration, fourth in hierarchy and IPWA Paints Plc as Executive Director, Business Development; he was head Corporate and Public Relations, UNTIL group.
He was two time Special Adviser, Agric and later Investments in the administration of former Governor Ibrahim Idris of Kogi State.
He was appointed by Idris’ successor, ex-Governor Idris Wada as Liaison Officer 1, Mopamuro Local Government of Kogi State and subsequently elected and served as Executive Chairman of Mopamuro Local Government between 2012 and 2016. He is the Ojomu of Mopa.
“Way Forward for Revitalizing The Textiles Sector”
Meanwhile, the new NTMA president, Daniyan, has called for increased government support to make the industry stand on its feet.
He identified the problems facing the industry to include lack of sufficient electricity supply, counterfeiting and smuggling among others.
He expressed optimism that with continued advocacy and increased support by government, the skies will be the limit “because it is obvious that a viable textiles industry can take thousands of Nigerians off the streets”.
He added that “A major problem for the textiles is cost of energy; cost of gas for those in the south and black oil for those in the north that are yet to be connected to the gas pipeline. Government recently approved gas tariff for textiles which is yet to come into full operation.
“However, one must commend this administration for its commitment to reviving the textile industry with the various intervention programmes for textiles. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has been doing quite a lot by banning forex to textile traders, but the customs have to support them to realise that objective.
“It is thought that if smuggling is reduced by 20 percent, about 40 textile firms will come back. We are advocating that the government set up a textile task force to combat smuggling of textiles as was recently done in Ghana. A minimum value should be fixed for textiles coming into Nigeria, as it is ridiculous for textiles to sell at N700 most of which are not healthy for the skin”.
He continued, “Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), Customs and other regulatory agencies have to work in unison, hence the need for the task force. The ability of the textiles to generate employment can best be imagined. For instance a textile firm with 2000 workers, consider the number of vehicles required to move them, the mechanics that will service those vehicles, vulcanizers, food vendors etc ,before you talk of cotton farmers. Over 20 states are suitable for cotton production. The textiles have fallen from a position of over 500,000 direct workers in the early 80’s , second only to government in employment, to the current situation of about 20,000 staff in the industry.
“We must not fail to mention the recent partial closure of our borders. This has improved the lot of the textiles and indeed others like poultry, rice farmers etal. We as an industry are therefore in favour of the continuous closure, we know the borders cannot remain shut for ever, but this period should be used to put safe guards for our economy in place. While the government insists our neighbours play their part. As Dangote was recently quoted as saying, with neighbours like Benin Republic, you don’t need enemies”.
The NTMA came together as a body as far back as 1967 and has since remained the umbrella under which the Nigerian textile Industry operates. Until stagnated by unchecked smuggling and dilapidated infrastructure in the early 90s, among other challenges, the textiles industry which used to have about 90 companies under the umbrella NTMA had been one of Nigeria’s largest and oldest manufacturing sectors of the economy, employers of labour and chief exports, rated third in Africa behind Egypt and South Africa.
