Institute to establish mini tanneries in 36 states
The Nigerian Institute of Leather and Science Technology (NILEST), Zaria, has concluded plans to establish mini tanneries in all states of the country to process hides and skin into leather.
The outgoing Director-General of the institute, Prof. Mohammed Yakubu made this known in an interview.
He said that the initiative was to provide the right infrastructure and technology for proper processing of the vast leather resources available in the country.
According to him, the investment is also meant to harness the leather resources to generate foreign exchange and provide employment.
“Nigeria is not unknown in the area of leather products, we used to have 84 leather industries and some even have branches in Italy and Spain. The Nigerian leather industry had branches in Europe. We want that to come back,” Yakubu added.
He noted that the collapse of the leather industry was largely due to poor infrastructure and high cost of energy.
The outgoing director general advised the federal government to provide concessionary energy rate for industries, so as to get the industries back on stream.
“Before independence and even during the first and second World War, the hides and skin for the footwear of British soldiers was sourced from Nigeria.
“Also, during the trans-saharan trade, traders used to come to Sokoto and Kano to get hides and skin, take it to Morocco, process it and call it Moroccan leather, but it is actually Sokoto red goat leather.
He said that it was worrying that as many as 84 leather industries had closed down over the years, adding that the setting up of mini tanneries is to get the industries back.
“Of course there are some issues – infrastructural problems – it is not the issue of technology because NILEST is providing all the technical requirements for the Nigerian tanneries and Nigerian leather industry to make impact in the world.
“We are not lacking in that, but poor infrastructure is what is hindering us. This include the issue of power.
“In production cost, power shouldn’t consume more than 50 percent, but currently in Nigeria, power is consuming more than 100 percent of production cost.
“There is no way we can produce anything in that scenario and think we can compete with China, India, Italy and other places.
“There must be some concessions. We must provide cheap power to our industries, particularly the leather industries for them to be able to compete with their foreign counterparts.”
He also said that the establishment of the mini tanneries will reduce the consumption of hides and skin in the country, so that the leather industries will have enough raw material.
“Lagos State alone, they slaughter about 100,000 cows every day and there are only fourty eight industries that can buy and process the skin and convert it to leather.”
He therefore said by reducing the cost of production, more industries will spring up.
“The main problem is power. As far as I’m concerned, the issue of tax in secondary, what’s important is to employ our teeming youths and attract foreign exchange, therefore, whatever concession is given to the industries will never be a waste.
“From the point of view of the leather policy, we are asking government to take a look at the power component for our processing industries in Nigeria, because with this problem, it is not going to be an easy task for the industries to come back to life.
“That is why we are planning to establish mini tanneries all over Nigeria.”
He also spoke on the campaign to stop the consumption of Kpomo in the country.
Yakubu said although the campaign has gone far and wide, they were aware of the impact it will have on those engaged in the business.
“We are aware that if people stop eating pomo, those people engaged in selling it will go out of business.
“So in the interim, we, the institute, are going to have mini tanneries all over Nigeria, so that we buy the hides and skin, process it into leather and export the leather.
“Even this will be at a loss to our country because we are selling our jobs, because if you need five people to process hides and skin into leather, you will need ten times that number to convert that leather into products.
“The mini tanneries will be processing between one to five tonnes of leather every week from each of our clusters.
“The ones we can make products from we will do so, and the ones we cannot, we sell to other users of leather in the South East, in Jos and others across the country.”
