Home NEWS Nigeria: How we can make Nigeria an industrial hub —Intertex Fabrics CEO

Nigeria: How we can make Nigeria an industrial hub —Intertex Fabrics CEO

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A Nigerian newspaper and Online version of the Vanguard, a daily publication in Nigeria covering Nigeria news, Niger delta, general national news, politics, business, energy, sports, entertainment, fashion,lifestyle human interest stories, etc

Intertex’s factory

By Jacob Ajom

Not every shirt or garment one finds bearing a foreign label actually comes from abroad. For reasons bothering on commercial viability, stability and ultimately, financial security, Nigerian manufacturers are compelled to fix foreign labels on their products. In a typical Nigerian gathering, it is an embarrassment for one to say what you are wearing is ‘Aba made’, as local parlance goes.

The inventive ingenuity of Aba manufacturers and many others like them across the country has been buried under foreign labels as Nigerians deride any product made in Nigeria. Homemade goods are always branded as “imitation” and avoided by young men and women.

From this background, Nigerian manufacturers are forced to take the ignominious step of dressing their products in foreign labels. This was aptly defended by the CEO of Intertex Fabrics & Designs, Binaebi Tokunbo Godspower, whose company produces shirts and garments that comparatively, can be ranked among the best in the world. He defended this unfortunate development in a chat with Saturday Vanguard.

“It is not always easy for us, manufacturers to put ‘made in Nigeria’ label on our products because buyers won’t take a second look at your product, no matter how good it looks. They won’t come in your direction a second time. We act on the advice from our dealers who said what Nigerians wanted to see were foreign labels, even the ones they are not familiar with.”

Speaking further, the entrepreneur explained that, “foreign labels are used on shirts and garments meant for the Nigerian market only.”

However, in a twist that defines patriotism, which also shows his organisation as one that really cares about the name of its country, Godspower said, “Anything produced for export goes out with a made in Nigeria label.” He added, “we don’t have a problem when we take our products outside the shores of this country. Our major problem is the very big Nigerian market, which is our mainstay.”

He said there must be concerted effort by relevant agencies to educate Nigerians on the need to patronise their own. “Only then can Nigerians begin to appreciate homemade products. At the moment, no matter how good your product appears, particularly, in our industry, Nigerians will not buy for as long as it bears a made-in-Nigeria label. Anybody who wants to remain afloat must follow the market trend. We spent millions of Dollars to set up our factory and will do whatever humanly possible to break even and make a substantial profit.”

For Binaebi Tokunbo Godspower, life has thrown up a new challenge, a new chapter which is just beginning. He has set for himself a tall target; to make Intertex Fabrics & Designs a global brand in the next five years. Godspower’s flourishing fabric company creates top-class shirts and garments that can be compared with the best in the world. The shirts and garments bear some labels that are already popular in the fashion industry. These include Lorenzi, Rientero, Garibaldi, Anita Garibaldi and G. Binito.

He said his company’s desire is to give Nigerians the best right here at home and make the country a pioneer in modern fabrics and fashion designs in this part of the world propelled his management to set up the factory in Lagos. And it is paying off handsomely as sales have been encouraging. “Why go abroad when all you need is here back home?” he asked.

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CEO of Intertex Fabrics & Designs, Tokunbo Godspower

He shared his story with us during a visit to Vanguard headquarters early in the week.

“I stumbled into this business when I visited Turkey, some years back. After watching closely the operations of one Turkish manufacturer, I asked if the machines they were using were manufactured in Turkey. He said no. What about the fabrics? He said some were manufactured locally while the bulk of them were imported from China. “I then reasoned that we too could do same in Nigeria.

We started discussion and it resulted in the setting up of our factory located at the Amuwo Odofin Industrial Estate, Lagos. We are the first in sub-Sahara Africa and hope to take over the West African market as fast as we can.

We import the fabrics from Turkey, China and other South Asian countries. These fabrics are pure cotton and of top quality.”

How did it all start? “We started by training over 50 tailors. In the fashion and design industry, the workforce is dominated by women. After five months training, we were able to convert them to industrial designers. They became professionals because when we engaged them, they could not operate the industrial machines. We trained them and today they are over 150 on our payroll.

“We had to train our staff to cope with our level of production which is very high. We churn out over 1,500 shirts per day and maintain a very high quality. Our products can be compared to what one can find anywhere in the world. We have an ultramodern state-of-the-art factory designed by my technical partners. It is as good as any found anywhere in the world.”

There are challenges anyway. He said the biggest challenge they were facing was the non-availability of viable cotton industry in the country. “Here people think agriculture is only about yam and cassava. In Turkey, they have a slogan, “from cotton farm to the final shirt on peoples’ bodies. We need to revive the cotton pyramids in the north by encouraging the farmers to go back to the farmland.”

He also said poor power supply is another factor working against industrialisation in Nigeria. “There are days we spend over N100,000 buying diesel. It is really a problem government has to look into because it does not only affect us, it pulls back the hands of the clock in Nigeria’s march towards industrial growth.

“Government should create a business-friendly environment so that big organisations can be attracted to come and open manufacturing firms like you have Nike, Adidas and many other multinationals from western countries, especially, the US who produce their wears and apparels in Asian countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong. You can buy a Nike T-Shirt in America and you would see the label boldly written, Made in Singapore. They go there to produce because of favourable working conditions and cheaper cost of production. The quality remains the same because they re-import these products back to their parent countries.”

He posited that Nigeria can also become the industrial hub of sub-Sahara Africa if the conditions become favourable because Nigeria has a very big market. “Government has to initiate and formulate practicable economic policies, steady power supply, get the desired technological transfer, a trained workforce and create and offer attractive incentives to investors.

Vanguard


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