Opinion: How to make Nigerians buy ‘Made-in-Nigeria’ products

There has recently been a growing call, mainly by Nigeria’s political elite, for Nigerians to patronize goods produced locally in the country rather than imported products. This should be a very welcome development in a country where citizens have a particularly strong bias towards foreign made goods over locally produced equivalents.

Moreso, for a country that relies on crude oil and gas export for about 80% of foreign exchange earnings, there could be no better time to encourage local capacity development than now that the price of crude has fallen by over 70% in the international market in less than two years. Indeed there is currently a window of opportunity for the government to act to stimulate the real sector of the national economy.

Less recently, before the current wave of sales pitching on “buy Made in Nigeria” by the government, I had made a personal decision to wear made in Nigeria shirts just in order to support the local industry and contribute a bit more to the national economy. In fact, last year, I had taken a trip to Aba and Lagos, and with the help of friends and relatives had practically changed out my wardrobe with “Aba Made” shirts.

Coincidentally, during the previous year I had also visited Mumbai in India and had had the opportunity of similarly buying some personal clothing, this time motivated mainly by the seemingly very attractive prices the products. So the result was that the two sets of garments, the one from India and the other from Nigeria, literally met and began to compete in my wardrobe for my coveted buyer preference; I would have to identify, select to wear, at least more often, whichever garments that gave me the best fit, effect and value for my money.

Like it or not, in a free market global economy, the success or failure of products (and services) in the market place derives mainly from their competitiveness or acceptance based on consumer satisfaction rather than sentiments. Buyers will always demand, first of all, for value for their hard earned money before sentimental factors such as national patriotism.

So based on my coincidental sample case, could an average Made-in-Nigeria product withstand, or even beat, the competition in the market place? Is it feasible in an increasingly globalised world economy, where it is becoming easier and also cheaper to order and receive personal products right on ones desk via online purchase? Going by my experience with the purchases from Lagos, Aba and Mumbai, certainly a lot more needs to be done by Nigeria’s political than the current hypes and calls.

For the avoidance of doubt, Nigeria is blessed with very talented and industrious entrepreneurs. In fact many of these excellent and hardworking small and medium scale entrepreneurs (SMEs) are known to produce very high quality goods. It is a common knowledge that many of the garments made by the Aba tailor are labeled and sold as foreign made products, in a bid to beat negative local sentiments. So the issue is not if there are local production capabilities, talents or potentials; there are plenty of them.

The real issue is in dealing with the negative buyer sentiments, firstly local, and also of course international. It is a common fact a nation must first put its local economy and polity in order before it can earn the respect and unfeigned patronage of others. So how can Nigeria fix its problem of negative buyer sentiment? Are these sentiments real and justified or are they merely illusionary? Is the Nigerian local buyer simply unpatriotic and merely incurably lured towards foreign made products? No, not likely.

As far as I know, there are no regulatory systems in place to encourage ensure commercial production of specific high potential goods, like the “Aba Made” garments, within certain predefined minimum quality measures. Thus statistically, under the current situation, irrespective of the number of the “high quality” shirts made by the talented tailors in Aba, Lagos or Kano, a random pick of locally made wares in the market, will likely produce a bad one.

This is what is driving the negative sentiments; the lack of quality assurance. A minimum quality standards regulatory mechanism for commercial production of specific “growth and opportunities” items is required.

In fact States and Local Governments should be actively involved in this process. The objective and function of such “niche” product regulatory systems should not be confused with those of existing establishments like the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) and NAFDAC. The operational and administrative focus areas and objectives are clearly distinct.

States and local governments should identify target products or endeavours in their localities for authentic promotion and development. Indeed arguably every part of Nigeria can offer a unique product or activity with some relative competitive advantage for development.

These include handcrafts such as the world-renowned Akwete cloth, Aso-Oke, and raffia and cane products; traditional food products of very high nutritional and medicinal values like Kunu, Ugba, Fura de Nono, and Agbo bitters, etc. All of these products and processes possess potentials for revolutionary local and international sales patronage, provided that the enabling systems are in place.

A proven and well known method for such enablement of industry and commerce is the concept of Clusters or Centers of Excellence. Some of these already exist in Nigeria, mainly driven by private sector efforts with the barest minimal or no enabling structures by the government.

For example the Alaba International Market in Lagos may well be described as an electronics products (including Nollywood films) Cluster. The same could be said of Ariaria in Aba for shoes and leather products, Moniya in Ibadan for beef, Aswani for textile products, etc.

However one could argue that these home grown niche markets have struggled and failed to emerge as Centers of Excellence. Nigeria’s political leaders and constituted authorities must now walk the talk in their current bid to promote widespread local and international patronage for Made-in-Nigeria goods. Government must create enabling environments by enabling and incentivizing activities of local SMEs, and assuring quality and value protection for consumers.

Doing so would engender productivity, create jobs, boost the local economy, increase government’s revenue, and ultimately improve the living standards of the people.

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Op–ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija

Akachidike Kanu is an engineer, author and social entrepreneur. He is a Co-founder and Director at Empowerment Serve, a Doha Qatar based nonprofit social service organization; He is a Registered Professional Engineer in Nigeria, and lives in Madrid, Spain.

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