Posted by The government should prohibit the importation of all raw materials that may be obtained locally, according to Dr. Abdullahi Aliyu, a former director general and chief executive officer of the Raw Materials Research and Development Council (RMRDC).
At the same time, the RMRDC and the Kaduna Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (KADCIMMA) reaffirmed the need of maximizing the raw material value chain’s potential for local content throughout all 36 states and the FCT.
In addition to addressing the need to address the availability of industrial raw material resources in Nigeria’s manufacturing sector, this move is likely to deepen sustainable economic growth by allocating raw material resources along state lines. This will help players in the manufacturing sector bolster the local content drive and improve the economy.
This is because, in an effort to improve the local content push and leverage the industrial sector’s ambitions and progress, the sectoral group compiled a document detailing the industrial raw material resources available across all 36 states and the FCT.
A report on Nigeria’s raw material resources based on the level of local government was prepared by the RMRDC. A paper summarizing the two types of raw material resources used by different manufacturing establishments—agro-based raw materials and mineral-based raw materials—is included as an annexure.
But the sector did review manufacturing performance from the 1980s to the present day and came up with recommendations for how Nigeria might achieve sustainability and economic revitalization.
“Nigeria is a country blessed with abundant human and material resources,” Aliyu said at the 45th Kaduna International Trade Fair Seminar, which was themed “Sustainable Economic Recovery through Deepening of Local Content Value Chain.” He went on to explain that most of these resources are not being used economically or effectively for the development of Nigeria, which is why today’s seminar theme is relevant.
Companies in Nigeria’s manufacturing sector are going out of business at a frightening rate, he said, and a lot of people are losing their jobs and chances to find work as a result.
The RMRDC Techno-Economic Survey found that over 10,000 small-scale businesses and over 2,000 significant companies in Nigeria went out of business between the years 1980 and 2020 because of the country’s terrible economic situation. The current average capacity utilisation for the industries that made it through the storm is a meager 10% to 20%.
The Nigerian manufacturing sector is collapsing, and things are becoming worse and more dire on an industrial level. There must be immediate action from the government to resolve the issue through various means.
The federal government should back and encourage private investment and development of raw materials such as gypsum, limestone, marble, silica sand, kaolin, ball clay, bentonite, crushed rocks, and barite, according to Aliyu. Aliyu went on to say that the country should stop importing these materials.
The federal government and the business sector should increase the degree of development and manufacturing for raw materials that can be largely supplied locally, he recommended. Diatomite, zircon sand, sulfur, phosphate, potash salt, fluorite, bauxite, and sillimanite are all examples of such raw materials.
“In 1995, RMRDC made a presentation to the federal government on cement production in Nigeria,” he said, referring to the country’s increasingly expensive cement. Limestone and gypsum are the two primary ingredients needed to make cement.