Paper Industry: A Sector in Death Throes

The paper manufacturing segment of the Nigerian economy is fizzling out by the day as the country has become a net importer of paper products and sliding towards a potential paper crisis, writes Dike Onwuamaeze

Nigeria is faced with a dire paper crisis. This crisis is largely caused by two reasons. One is the comatose state of the three integrated pulp and paper mills that were established in the country in the 1960s and 1970s. These paper mills are the Nigerian Paper Mill in Jebba; the Nigeria Newsprint Manufacturing Company, Oku Iboku; and the Iwopin Pulp and Paper Company. Only the Jebba mill still has a show of breath of life. The number two factor is that virtually no new investments were made in establishing new once.

This parlous state has led experts that participated in a recent workshop on the paper industry, which was organised by the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) in collaboration with the Raw Material Research Council of Nigeria (RMRCN) to warn that a national paper crisis is looming. They claimed that the crisis, if left untamed, could metamorphous into a national problem that might put the price of papers beyond the reach of many Nigerians due to total reliance on imported paper products to meet the country’s domestic needs.

They, however, posited that the country could earn more revenue from paper production and export if all hands would be on deck to find lasting solutions to the already visible impending paper crisis by harnessing proven domestic sources of raw materials that abound within the country.

A Professor at the Department of Forest Production and Products, Faculty of Renewable Natural Resources at the University of Ibadan, Professor Abiodun Oluwafemi Oluwadare, in a paper he presented during the workshop with the theme “Challenges Prospects and Raw Materials Demand in the Printing, Packaging and Publishing Industry,” observed that the crisis in the paper industry has persisted in spite of the initial advances made by the government to meet the country’s domestic need through the establishment of the three paper mills that are now moribund.
Historical background

Oluwadare pointed out that among the many industries that sprang up in the 1960 following the country’s independence was the pulp and paper milling industry. He said that the first integrated pulp and paper mill, the Nigerian Paper Mill, Jebba, was established in 1969 for the production of kraft paper and liner board. After initial modifications, its capacity was brought up to 65,000 metric tons per annum.

Subsequently, additional two mills were added, namely, the Nigerian Newsprint Manufacturing Company (NNMC) with 100,000 metric tons capacity for the production of newsprint and the National Paper Manufacturing Company (NMPC), which later became the Iwopin Pulp and Paper Company (IPPC) with capacity to produce 100,000 metric tons of bond paper.

He noted that the pulp and paper industry, as a forestry and chemical based industry, was one of the most effective industries in Nigeria between 1970 and 1990. The early high performance of these mills, especially the NNMC, brought about drastic reduction in the proportion of imported newsprint in Nigeria to 17.5 per cent in 1986, 12.5 per cent in 1987 and by 1990, newsprints importation completely faded out.

But this initial success story was not sustained. The three paper mills that were established by federal government eventually closed down by 1996 and are yet to be revived despite their privatisation in 2006. Today, Nigeria is virtually a net importer of paper products, which is estimated to be over 380 million metric tons annually.

Oluwadare estimated that the three paper mills in Nigeria had a combined capacity of 265,000 metric tons per annum compared to Ghana rated mill capacity of 1.5 million metric tons of paper per annum.

He stated that the possibility of meeting the increasing need in this sector dwindles every day since the paper mills in Nigeria are not in operation, adding that importation of paper and paper products “will be more expensive in the next five years.

“Several years down the line, the paper mills have at various times received different forms of interventions involving huge resources from government and its agencies, including a celebrated privatisation exercise, yet they have remained moribund; a shadow of the promise they held when they were established and launched with fanfare.
Nigeria with growing and viable newspaper industry, vibrant book and publishing industry, a multifarious printing industry and the litany of allied paper products segment, Nigeria, rather than source from local mills, now depend heavily on foreign manufacturers for her paper needs, spending huge foreign exchange in the process,” he said.

In recent times, it was reported that the National Assembly has set up a committee to review the privatisation exercise and to look into the issues surrounding the moribund paper mills. The Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Mr. Niyi Adebayo, was reported to have the opinion that the sector has suffered a great deal and there is need for urgent attention. However, “the committee set up by the National Assembly is yet to do anything tangible to this national problem,” Oluwadare said.

The Director General of the RMRDC, Professor Hussaini D. Ibrahim, stated that the effect of these deficiencies is reflected in import trade figures for paper, paperboard and art paper. Ibrahim said that the import figure for these types of papers from 2010 to 2015 was N658.1 billion while the net amount build higher to N798.9 billion when aggregated together with values for printed books, newspaper, pictures, and other miscellaneous paper products.

According to the COMTRADE database on international trade, Nigeria’s import of paper in 2020 alone was $696 million.
He said: “In exact terms, importation of paper and paper products in Nigeria has compromised over 300,000 jobs that would have been available for Nigeria.

“Hope is still far from the horizon as the remnant of surviving local paper manufacturers are still contending with issues of obsolete and vandalised equipment, inability to access funds and monumentally dilapidated public infrastructure.”

The director general of the RMRDC observed that from economic point of view, the paper industry has the lowest figures for production and consumption for local products among all the industrial divisions in Nigeria, placing the sector on the rank of likely lowest capital investment and output.

“This may likely be as a result of the deplorable performance of the existing paper mills. It may also be due to the unwillingness of investors to invest in the paper business due to the long perceptions hinging on the absence of raw materials resources. This is so because the situation though changing was a result of decreasing availability of the wood due to rapid forestation globally,’ Ibrahim said.

The Challenges

The basic challenges of the paper industry, as articulated by Oluwadare, included inadequate raw materials supply and unready state of the industries to make use of the locally produced materials; lack of basic facilities and equipment for paper testing even in institution of higher learning; bad government policies and lack of interest to revitalise the paper mills; lack of support from the industrial sector for research in pulp and paper as well as low human capacity building in terms of curriculum development.

In spite of the challenges, the Deputy Director and Head, Pulp and Paper Technology, Federal Institute of Industrial Research, Oshodi, (FIIRO), Dr. F.A.T. Owolabi, believed that the future of paper making in Nigeria is bright, as long as the hampering issues which center on raw material sources, availability of energy and water supplies, and environmental pollution are adequately tackled.

Notwithstanding, Owolabi stated that “in Nigeria, however, challenges associated with paper production, consumption, and economic prospects have not been adequately tackled.

“Huge volume of paper products imported annually reflects negatively on the Nigeria’s paper industry and spread indirectly to the entire country’s economy in terms of high capital freight spent on importation, volatile product price, and loss of employment opportunities.

“The use of agricultural residues in pulping and papermaking in Nigeria is expected to bring down the cost of printing and packaging paper and also solve the problem of disposal, which currently increases farming costs and causes environmental deterioration through pollution, fires, and pests.”

He suggested the use of environmental friendly chemical on lignocellulose residue with the aim of maximising the use in pulping activities should be considered.

“Sustainable paper production in Nigeria is achievable by solving the over emphasised problems of unavailability of primary fiber material and also by making effort towards secondary fiber recovery,” Owolabi said.

But no matter how deplorable the condition of paper industry might be currently, experts still believed that the sector could be salvaged because the uses and applications of paper worldwide remained inexhaustible and would continue to increase despite digitalisation.

Oluwaadare said that more people use paper and paper products than crude oil and its refined products and that globally, pulp price is relatively stable $875 while crude oil price is highly unstable.

“Nigeria is blessed with abundance of flora species for pulp and paper production and yet, there is crisis in this sector. In comparison to global oil prices, paper is more expensive than crude oil. A barrel of crude oil is equivalent to 139 kg by weight and a metric tonne of paper is 1000 kg. On the average, 1 kg of crude oil is $0.53 while 1 kg of paper is $0.85.”

Role of Research

The university don stated that there are major roles research could play in the development and complete revitalisation of the sector. He observed that this role was missed shortly after the collapse of the pulp and paper research laboratory in the FIIRO because there were no equipment and facilities to work with.

‘In the early 1960’s, many tree species were characterised for their suitability for papermaking and the breakthrough of the research was the exotic species in the name of Gmelina arborea.

In the current stance, to carry out any meaningful characterisation of any fibrous raw material will require foreign intervention to secure a good laboratory. This is a form of capital flight in form of academic tourism. Thus, the need for a well-equipped laboratory is a step forward towards solving the present paper crisis,” Oluwadare said.