Ajila-Ladipo calls for implementation infrastructure following senate textile import ban

The Nigerian Fashion Council (NFC), Nigeria’s national sector skill council for the fashion, leather, accessories, and textile (FLAT) industry, has responded to the Nigerian Senate’s resolution calling for a total ban on the importation of foreign textile materials. The NFC welcomes the legislative intent while urging the Federal Government to ensure that any policy action is matched by an equally robust institutional and industry development framework.

Speaking on behalf of the Council, Funmi Ajila-Ladipo, executive chairperson and head of the Policy Committee of the Nigerian Fashion Council, said “Nigeria’s textile industry collapse is not simply a story of unfair competition from imported fabrics. It is a story of decades of under-investment in standards, institutional capacity, and industry infrastructure.”

She added that “The Senate’s resolution is a welcome signal of political will. But policy without implementation infrastructure will fail as it has before. What Nigeria needs alongside this ban is a coordinated national programme that builds the institutional frameworks and market systems that will make a revived textile industry globally competitive and domestically sustainable. That is precisely the work the Nigerian Fashion Council exists to do.”

The Senate’s resolution, passed on 9th June 2026, called on the Federal Government to impose an outright ban on the importation of all foreign textile materials, citing the decimation of Nigeria’s once-thriving textile sector which at its peak in the 1970s and 1980s boasted nearly 167 mills and employed hundreds of thousands of workers. Over 180 mills have since shut down, with the sector continuing to lose productive capacity due to cheap imported alternatives, largely from Asia.

Nigeria spends approximately $4 billion annually importing clothing and footwear, with an additional $1.2 billion estimated to enter through informal and smuggled routes – even as the country’s domestic consumer fashion market is valued at over $6.8 billion and projected to reach $10 billion. On a continental scale, UNESCO estimates that Africa runs an annual textile, clothing, and footwear trade deficit of $7.6 billion. The gap between what Nigeria consumes and what it produces locally represents one of the most significant and largely unaddressed economic failures in the country’s industrial history.

The Nigerian Fashion Council, established as a national sector skill council under the Federal Ministry of Education through the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE), is the institutional body charged with driving policy development, professional standards, education reform, programme delivery, and sustainability across Nigeria’s fashion value chain from raw material to end of life.

This textile import ban, while potentially transformative for local producers, will only achieve its intended objectives if accompanied by parallel institutional action in the following areas, which fall squarely within the NFC’s mandate:

Policy and regulatory frameworks: The NFC’s Policy Committee is developing policy recommendations and advocacy positions to guide government engagement across relevant Ministries and agencies, including the Federal Ministries of Industry, Trade and Investment; Art, Culture, Tourism and the Creative Economy; and Education.

Standards and professional competency frameworks: Revived domestic production must meet national and international quality standards to be competitive. The NFC’s Industry & Professional Standards Committee is developing the professional competency and quality assurance frameworks that will govern production standards across the sector.

Programme design and implementation: The NFC’s Programs & Projects Committee is developing Nigeria’s first comprehensive Programme Management and Implementation Manual for the FLAT sector, covering sector-specific programme frameworks, market development, resource mobilisation, and monitoring and evaluation systems.

Sustainability and ethical production: Any textile revival must be anchored in sustainable production practices. The NFC’s Sustainability Committee is developing frameworks for environmentally responsible and ethically sound production across the sector.

Academia and industry-education linkages: The NFC’s Academia Committee is developing frameworks for fashion education reform, industry-academia collaboration, and research and innovation across the FLAT sector.

The NFC calls for a coordinated multi-agency response that brings together relevant Federal and State Ministries, the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), and institutional bodies such as the NFC to develop and implement a coherent national textile revival strategy.

“We are not asking to be consulted after the fact,” Ajila-Ladipo added. “We are asking to be part of the design of what comes next. Nigeria already has an institution with the mandate, the structure, and the commitment to do this work. We are ready.”

The Nigerian Fashion Council formally invites the relevant Federal Ministries, the National Assembly committees on Industry and on Education, and other key stakeholders to engage with the Council on the development of a coordinated national implementation framework for the textile sector revival.

NFC is Nigeria’s national Sector Skill Council for the fashion industry, established under the FLAT framework – Fashion, Leather, Accessories, and Textiles – and inaugurated on 4 March 2025 by the Federal Ministry of Education through the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE). The Council operates at the intersection of industry, government, and academia, driving policy development, professional standards, education reform, programme delivery, and sustainability across Nigeria’s fashion value chain.