How to revive manufacturing sector, by Utomi, Hayatudeen, others

To change the sorry story of manufacturing sector which fell from its 13 percent contribution to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to the current abysmal 3 percent, government must, as a matter of urgency, take a look at the factors that make doing business easier.

The observation was made in Lagos by Pat Utomi, founder/CEO, Centre for Values in Leadership (CVL); Boniface Chizea, management/financial consultant; Mohammed Hayatudeen, CEO, Alpine Investment Services; Rasheed Adegbenro, consultant, Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, and Tony Obidulu, MD/CEO, Kony Nigeria Enterprises.

The event was a colloquium to mark the 13th CVL Leader Without Title (LWT) leadership tribute series of the CVL in honour of Oludolapo Ibukun Akinkugbe at 85, with the theme: ‘Rethinking Manufacturing & Development in Nigeria’.

In his remarks, Utomi noted that policy inconsistency had for many years retarded the growth of manufacturing, adding that boardrooms may not have played well their roles in helping the sector.

“Manufacturing is going the way of many other sectors in the country suffering from government’s policy somersault. At a point in the country, we witnessed the rise of manufacturing up to a point where it contributed nearly 13 percent of GDP, and its fall, to today’s place of no more than three percent of GDP. Could the boardrooms have saved manufacturing? Can the boardrooms influence the efforts to save manufacturing in Nigeria? Directors can and should make a difference. They can influence policies using their vantage positions. They can constitute a pressure group to push policy in the direction that makes the environment more conducive for performance. Manufacturing has not gone the right way in the country which has hindered resource allocation”, Utomi observed.

He further suggested that “to reinvent manufacturing will therefore involve looking at factors that make doing business easier- from licences to infrastructure such as power, transport and water.”

On the way forward for the sector, Mohammed Hayatudeen, said Nigeria must rethink in terms of doing things right.

“We must take into consideration what is happening in other parts of the CHUKWUworld since we are not an island. We must rethink in terms of moving at the same speed with the rest of the world. There must be a better collaboration between the public and private sectors. This will help in fine-tuning the policies for the good of the country,” Hayatudeen said.

Rasheed Adegbenro said there must be commitment to push through what it takes to make manufacturing work.

According to him, “The Manufacturing Association of Nigeria (MAN) has continued to request for better policies. Part of the problems we are having is the manner of appointment of those who formulate the policies. They are not based on integrity, qualification and competence. If your hands are not clean, you cannot enforce policies. Over the years, we have seen such cases of gross abuse of waivers in this country, and it is killing businesses. We must change all these to move forward,” Adegbenro said.

Boniface Chizea and Tony Obidulu noted that corruption, high interest rates, porous borders which allow low-cost goods to flood the country, and infrastructure deficit have combined to deal a deadly blow on manufacturing. They insisted that unless the issues were addressed, there would be no respite.