By AbdulRaheem Aodu Kaduna
Northern governors have restated their commitment to revive textile industry, starting with conversion of Kaduna Textiles Limited to garment producing company to produce uniforms for military and paramilitary organisations.
Governors Nasir Ahmad el-Rufai of Kaduna state, Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano state and Abdulaziz Yari of Zamfara state, while addressing the fi nal plenary session of the Kaduna Investment and Economic Summit yesterday, said the plan to revive the textile industry covers the entire cotton value chain from growing cotton to ginning to production of yarn, fi ber and production of garment.
Answering a question raised by the General Secretary of National Union of Textile Garment and Tailoring Workers of Nigeria, Comrade Issa Aremu, the governors said Northern states owned KTL, which was closed in 2002, will soon be revived, but as a garmenting assembly.
Th ey, however, noted that it would not take place overnight as they had to address the challenges of smuggling and dumping of cotton products from China, poor electricity and water supply and obsolete machines and production system. El-Rufai said: “Kaduna used to be called the Manchester of Nigeria because of the concentration of textile industry. Th e textile industry had over 33,000 people working there at its peak in the early 80s. Since we came in, we have been working with the federal government to be able to revive the textile, because we need the support and cooperation of the Federal Government. “We have to look at the entire value chain, because if you revive the textile without the cotton production, there would be a problem.
So, our focus at the Northern States Governors Forum is to focus on reviving the Kaduna Textile Limited, which is owned by the 19 Northern States as a proof of consent and our idea is not to begin textile production at KTL but to rip out the machine and establish assembly line for garmenting.
