The resilient thread: Funtua’s last standing cotton factory

Before industrialisation, women in Northern Nigeria were known for cotton spinning, a critical process in production of textiles and garment materials. Seventy-four-year-old Aishatu Garba, a cotton spinner who has been on the job for over four decades, hasn’t given up. She learned the art of cotton spinning in Funtua, Katsina State in the 1960’s and since then, she has held the job firmly.

“I learned cotton spinning after I got married and relocated to Funtua. An old man used to take our cotton threads to the market to sell. In those days, the transactions were done in pennies and kobos,” she recalled. 

Watching Aisha Garba spin cotton is a fascinating experience. Despite her old age, she remains self-reliant while upholding the tradition of cotton spinning which represents the rich cultural heritage of the people of Northern Nigeria. 

“My late husband, Alhaji Garba, used to work with the cotton threads, he bought the cotton, then I did the spinning for him. Now, I spin cotton for my son. He buys it from me and I feel happy because the proceeds help me. Sometimes, he sends me money like N2,000 or N3,000 to buy cotton, he requests more when he sells the previous one,” she said. 

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Artisans like Aisha were the backbone of the cotton processing industry in the past. Historically, agriculture was the mainstay of the northern economy. Across the North-west, towering groundnut pyramids dotted the landscape. The pyramids were symbols of the essential role of agriculture in the region and farming was such an important part of life that it influenced the culture and lifestyle of the people.

Usually, around June and July, farmers begin tilling the soil for a special crop —cotton. By November, up to January, expectations are high for a bountiful harvest. In the old days, peasant farmers produced the cotton crop in Katsina, Sokoto and Zaria. As early as the 14th century, Muslim traders established a sophisticated network for the cotton market and Kano, Bida and Ilorin were trading hubs. Production was so organised that by 1905, Nigeria began exporting cotton to the United Kingdom.

By the 1980’s, cotton contributed up to 25 per cent of Nigeria’s gross domestic products (GDP). With more than 180 operational textile companies, this positioned Nigeria as one of the top cotton producers on the African continent.

Professor Alkasum Abba, a renowned historian and former lecturer of history at the Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, said Nigerians have been cultivating cotton crops even before the pre-colonial era.

“When the British industrialisation started, they realised that it was a material that could be worn in hot and cold weather, and so cotton became important. You know the industrialisation in Britain began with wool, because of their weather, it is outside, they found cotton, and then, they moved over from wool to cotton, concentrated to produce textile materials,” he said.

Prof. Abba explained that before colonial rule, the British didn’t find Nigerians naked, “they found us wearing clothing, wearing dresses, living in urban areas which were very critical for expansion of civilisation.” 

He added that Nigeria’s regional governments had set up marketing boards with the purpose of encouraging the production of raw materials. “One thing the regional government also did was to establish textile industries in Kaduna, in collaboration with foreigners. They had quite a number of textile factories in Kaduna, so with independence, we started transforming ourselves from exporters of cotton raw materials into manufacturers,” Professor Alkasum Abba recalled.

At the peak of cotton production in Nigeria, Funtua, a bustling commercial hub, located in Katsina State, Northwest Nigeria, became a cotton hotspot, it was a trading centre hosting local and foreign cotton dealers.

In the golden age of Northern Nigeria’s textile industry, the Sardauna, Sir Ahmadu Bello, envisioned the region benefitting from an agrarian economy. By 1957, the Kaduna Textiles Limited began operations, Arewa Textiles, Nortex, United Nigeria Textiles among others, soon followed suit. By the 1970’s, against the backdrop of Nigeria’s oil industry boom, the textile industry was one of the highest employers of labour. However, in subsequent decades, poor electricity, lack of equipment maintenance, and leadership failures led to the crash of over 150 textile companies across the country. During this period, Nigeria’s journey through economic turbulence rendered more than a million employees jobless.

Napoleon Ngakto was an employee of one of the moribund textile factories in Kaduna. He reminisces about the good old days. “As at 1995, we could earn between N20,000 to N25,000, we had what we called over-time, depending on the work you did. The motivations, sometimes because of their profits, the company would say “we are giving the workers bonuses of so and so amount,” he said. Ngakto is one of hundreds of thousands of employees in the Nigerian textile industry who are now struggling to survive amidst the country’s current economic meltdown.

On a mission to explore the current state of cotton production and processing in Northern Nigeria, our reporter arrived Funtua on Thursday morning. It was a journey of 150 kilometers from Kaduna.

This reporter visited the great Funtua rock; a significant landmark located at the heart of the commercial town and an ancient symbol of the town which elders said was a major convergence centre for cotton merchants and traders in Northern Nigeria.

While in Funtua, he visited the Funtua Textiles Limited, one of less than 30 textile companies across Nigeria, located in Funtua Local Government Area of Katsina State. The company has ginning, spinning, weaving and finishing facilities. It has been processing cotton materials for various needs, attracting sales within and outside Nigeria while providing job opportunities for hundreds of people.

However, this last standing textile factory in Funtua, Katsina State is now struggling to remain in business, amidst economic challenges. Ibrahim Mu’azu is the Administration/Public Relation Manager of the Funtua Textiles Limited, and says the company has not made any profit in the last 20 years.

“It was established in 1978, the commissioning was done in 1979,” he recalled adding that “all along we have been running, we have strong leadership, people who have the zeal to produce, people who know how to take care of their workers.”

Mu’azu explained that: “Right now, as we are talking with you, we have not made N1 profit for the past 20 years, but you know what our chairman told us and the board? Continue to work as long as you are breaking even, but they don’t want to hear anything about redundancy or reducing manpower.”

Going down memory lane, he said the company initially had up to 3,400 workers, but explained that the decision not to lay off workers meant they had to devise a strategy that would keep them afloat and at the same time ensure staff welfare. “Since we were not going to reduce the workers, we allowed the place to run itself. If you decide to leave the job, we are not going to employ another guy, if you are retired, we make sure that the next person working with you takes over your job,” he said.

Mu’azu said to salvage the few surviving textile factories in Nigeria from total collapse, the federal government must ensure a steady and affordable power supply.

It would be recalled that in the past three decades, successive governments have made several efforts to resuscitate moribund textile companies. The federal government floated a series of funding schemes totalling over $1.18bn in the last 30 years, unfortunately, these efforts were fruitless.

Economist and an expert in the textile industry, Dr Sambo Ingawa, blames the collapse of the textile industry on Nigeria’s poor budgetary process and the general weakness of the nation’s industrialisation.

“The textile industry is part of all the gamut issues that is constraining industrial growth, they are part of the same vehicle that we are journeying toward development. They cannot be faster than the vehicle that they are in, right? So, look at the vehicle, what is wrong with it? And I am telling you it is this hyperinflation, and this hyperinflation is coming from the macroeconomic budgetary process which affects everybody,” explained Dr Ingawa.

He said what the governors can do if they want to save production and agriculture in general is to raise an agenda of national economic reform with the federal government, adding that no state or region can create its own inflation rate.

“When we began to receive those proceeds from petro-dollar, when you sell crude, you obtain dollar cash flow, so what do we do with the dollars? We put it in the budget and spend. That is what we say, we collect FAAC every month and spend, but we don’t spend dollars here do we? We spend Naira, so how do we turn the dollar into Naira? What Nigeria has been doing is that it will keep the dollar in the reserve and then print Naira and share as monthly FAAC distribution, and then we spend that money,” he said.

He added that when the government spends that money, it only increases the money supply in the economy but without one grain of maize or one ounce of cotton being produced. So, there will be more money than goods, it will induce inflation, inflation will make the production at home here more expensive than what is produced globally,” Ingawa added.

Over the years, Nigeria’s cotton farming has been fragile due to many factors including farmers struggling to create value for their labour. This challenge constituted the many troubles that led to a significant decline in Nigeria’s cotton production and the ripple effect across the entire textile industry. However, despite its resilience, the Funtua Textiles Limited still struggles to summont the same economic challenges that consumed dozens of cotton companies across the country. These economic challenges continue to threaten the existence of the textile company and other production companies in Nigeria.