Stakeholders’ in Nigeria’s leather products industry have come up with ingenious ideas for improved productivity, job creation and contibution to Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
The stakeholders from across the country, came together at the ongoing Edo Leather Business to Business Summit and Fair, organised by the National Steering Committee on Leather and Leather Policy Implementation Plan, held in collaboration with the Edo State Government in Benin City, the Edo State capital.
At the summit, Mr. Ogbide Ifaluyi Isibor, the Edo State Commissioner for Digital Economy, Science and Technology, urged Nigerian cobblers and artisans to make efficient use of social media marketing, in packaging and promoting their products for greater visibility, sales and earnings.
“The world is changing, maximize technology to its fullest potential, go on social media platforms and create accounts for your business, take nice pictures of your products, post them alongside their prices and boost them if possible’’, Isibor said.
He further encouraged artisans not to limit their patronage to only people around them but to use social media, as most people buy things on social media and don’t have time to go about looking for physical shops.
Mr. Andrew Igile, director policy analysis statistics and international relations, with the Nigeria Institute of Leather and Science Technology, said in an exclusive interview with the Nigerian Observer at the fair:”I am sure you are aware Nigeria produces leather in the north. We have the tanneries and they export tanned leather outside the country and people from the south use the leather to produce finished leather goods, shoes, bags and the likes.
“People will go outside the country to import this same leather and come and be doing what they need to do. There is a disconnect. So we saw the need to bring everybody together on the same table.
“This is the third edition. The first was held in Kano in 2021, second in Lagos and the third in Edo. One of the success stories is that we now have an amalgamated association which I refer to as LAAPAN, so that everybody is now under one umbrella.
“So we can start talking to each other so that those with leather can supply them directly and we can produce. Let them see what the Nigerian actors can produce of international standard.We also train and teach people how to register their companies almost free of charge”.
Mr. Olasunkanmi Mosiku, National Chairman, Cobblers And Leather Artisans Association of Nigeria (CALAAN), appealed to Nigerians to reduce their consumption of the local delicacy known as pomo, which is animal skin, as this significantly reduces the amount of hides and skins available for the manufacture of shoes and other leather products in the country.
Mosiku further said there were no modern tanneries in Nigeria capable of delivering perfect product finishing which would then make Nigerian products more competitive at home and abroad. He said there was also a shortage of skilled manpower in the local industry.
Mosiku put the value of Nigeria’s leather products industry at about $100 million and said there was room for much expansion barring existing limitations.
He listed the limitations as including funding, rising production cost, multiple taxation, inflation, electricity shortfalls, a shortage of competitive cutting edge machinery and the preference of foreign products in the Nigerian market, among others.
He called on government to invest in Common Facility Centres, with top of the range equipment, where local businesses could pay for access to these machines to upgrade the quality of their finished products.
He said machines which should be made available at such centres should be those for sewing, gumming, folding and lasting, which were all currently done manually and to poor effect in the local industry.
He said government had been helpful to the local industry by issuing them with volume contracts, such as for military footwear and observed that the local manufacturers are currently servicing the needs of less than ten percent of the martrket.
The summit which is holding at the Victor Uwaifo Creative Hub in Benin City carries on to Thurday, September 14.
