OPSN Establishes Sector Skill Council for Textiles, Apparel, Garment Industries

•DG NASSI says council will empower Nigerians to take charge of country’s N10tn TAG market

Dike Onwuamaeze

Members of the Organised Private Sector of Nigeria (OPSN) in collaboration with the German Cooperation, GIZ and SKYPE, have inaugurated the board of Sector Skill Council (SSC) for the Textile, Apparel and Garment (TAG) industry in Nigeria.

The membership of the recently inaugurated board is made up of the Deputy Director General of National Association of Small Scale Industrialists (NASSI), Ms. Omowunmi Olumide Obidiran and The Director General of Nigerian Textile Manufacturers Association, Mr. Hamma Ali Kwajafa, as interim board head and interim vice chairman (textile) respectively.

Other members of the board are the President of Fashion Designers Association of Nigeria, Mr. Femi Olayebi, interim vice chair (Apparel); and Mr. Akanni Oyefusi, interim vice Chair (Garment).  

The members of the OPSN that fostered the establishment of the SSC were the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, Nigerian Employers Consultative Assembly, National Chambers of Commerece, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA), NASSI and the National Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (NASME).

The OPSN said the SSC would be responsible for defining the skills, knowledge and behaviours that would underpin human resource development for TAG industries.

The promoters of the SSC also affirmed that it was clear that the, “textile, clothing, leather and footwear industry in Nigeria faces a range of skill gaps and shortages,” which the SSC, “will need to work with the full range of partners to deliver solutions that will respond to these issues.”

They also defined the SSC as an employer-led organisation whose aim was to engender human capital development of highly skilled workforce that is productive and competitive.

The SSC would also champion the development of nationally acceptable standard curriculum for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) in Nigeria to ensure that the Nigerian educational institutions would produce the skills needed by the TAG industries.

Speaking during the formal inauguration of the SSC for the TAG industries, the Director General of NACCIMA, Mr. Sola Obadimu, said, “the OPSN is in this journey to empower our workforce to cater for Nigeria’s domestic needs and export to foreign markets.”

He said: “This is very significant concerning the type of responsibilities that we owe to our youths to develop them to be self-sufficient and able to earn foreign exchange. We congratulate the organisers of this programme: the GIZ and trade associations that are here.”

Speaking in the same vein, the director general of NTMA, said the council would enable the industry to engage with the government to develop new educational curriculum that would end the era of shunning out graduates who do not have prerequisite skills that are required by industries. Kwajafa added: “Workshops should be in our educational institutions for our youths to develop something with their hands.”

The Director General of NASSI, Mr. Chris Oputa, said he was excited by the efforts the GIZ is making in Nigeria and elsewhere in West Africa.

Oputa said the benefits of the SSC would enable Nigerian firms to increase their market share of the N10 trillion Nigerian textile industry, which is currently being dominated by imports from China and India.

The Director of the Industrial Training Fund (ITF), Mr. Joseph Ani, who was represented by Ms. Olayinka Shodunke, expressed hope that the SSC would mark the beginning of the revival of the textile industry in Nigeria.

Ani lamented that even Adire is being taken away from Nigerian producers.

“Now we are having Chinese and Indian Adire. They are even exporting it to Nigerians in diaspora.  Let us revive our textile industry.”

Obadiran, who is also the first chair of the TAG’s SSC board, said that poor skill development would hinder Nigeria’s effective participation in the African Continental Free Trade Area.

She said: “What matters is the skill. If we do not have this holistic movement (TAG’s SSC) now, we are not going to succeed in anything else we do. The SSC is not new. There had been previous attempts. But it is not one unless it is private sector lead.”

The Team Leader, Cooperative Vocational Training Component of Sequa, Mr. Johann-Peter Porten, who also represents SKYE and GIZ, explained that the SSC was about giving young Nigerians the opportunity to find their place in the TAG market as professionals by being trained in the right competences.

Porten said: “We are now starting with the TAG sector, a vibrant sector with a lot of possibilities. Even if we have excellent designers, they will be missing competent people who can work to international standard. We have to look not only at the designs; we also have to look at the finishing. This is very much important. So, the SSC will determine the competence of people working in this sector; it will define it, access it and produce the right competence for the sector.

The TVET Partnership Coordinator for Cooperative Vocational Training Component, Sequa, Mr. Jonathan Osadalor, said that for “the first time we are actually having a skill sector council in Nigeria that is a link between the private sector, public sector and the education sector. This is what we want it to be going forward.”