Tension In Kano As Seized N315b Textile Materials Await Burning

In Kano state, textile traders, textile workers and the general public are on tenterhooks as the Nigeria Custom Service (NCS) awaits federal government’s directive on allegedly smuggled textile materials worth N315bn. Would the materials be burnt?
There is palpable tension in Kantin Kwari market, the acclaimed largest textile market in West Africa, following the seizure, by men of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), of N315 billion worth of textile materials allegedly smuggled into the country by Chinese nationals. The allegation is rife in Kano that Chinese smugglers of such materials connive with local traders to perpetrate the act.
Customs officials commenced, on 8 May this year, confiscation of textile materials considered to have been smuggled into the country. During the exercise which lasted three weeks, the NCS officials sealed a total of 75 warehouses stocked with textile materials estimated at N315bn, while some Chinese nationals were arrested. Since the commencement of the raid, Customs officials have been laying siege to warehouses in the state, a development that has put owners of the warehouses on the run.

Speaking during his visit to Kano penultimate Tuesday, Comptroller-General of the NCS, Mr Abdullahi Dikko Inde said the sealed warehouses contained contraband textile materials smuggled in from China.

“I initiated the raid of the warehouses from my office in Abuja, based on information, in order to salvage our economy. Goods in one warehouse there alone are worth N4.2bn, and if you multiply that by 75, you will get the worth of the seizure we have made.

“If you recall, during the Obasanjo regime, over 200 trailers loaded with contraband were burnt here in Kano and over 400 others were burnt in Lagos state. I will report this situation to the federal government for them to take a decision on it. We are doing our best and they (smugglers) are doing their worst. Even if all 170 million Nigerians are deployed to our borders, they cannot stop smuggling,” he added.

But the traders have deflated the claim of the Customs boss, saying the textile materials were imported through routes NCS officials were aware of. In an interview, the secretary of the Kano State Traders’ Union (KSTU), Alhaji Aliyu Lamin Gwale maintained that importers of the seized textile materials paid all the necessary duties on them.
“It was the closure of the textile factories in Nigeria that pushed us to China and we have been doing this for over 15 years. We have been bringing the textile materials through the only and known person that the Customs are aware of.

“We are surprised that suddenly they went after our warehouses and have sealed a total of 75 so far. This has crippled businesses in Kano and our people have been exposed to untold hardship,” Alhaji Gwale said.

The Chairman of the Kanti Kwari Traders Association, Alhaji Liti Kulkul declared that contrary to the allegation being bandied about, a huge chunk of the seized items belongs to members of his association and not Chinese traders.

“We paid appropriate taxes on the seized goods. We paid 5 per cent on each N20m goods as tax through our agent. But we are not arguing with the government. We are ready to join hands with the government to sanitise the textile business in Nigeria. Now they are demanding that we should pay N5bn on every billion naira worth of textile as penalty. This is on the high side,” Alh Kulkul pleaded.

The National Union of Textile Garment and Tailoring Workers of Nigeria (NUTGTWN), the umbrella body of textile workers in the country, has, however, hailed the efforts of the NCS and called for the burning of the seized textiles.


“We are impressed by the recent discovery of 75 illegal warehouses in Kano where contraband textile materials worth about N319.9bn were stored. We commend the Customs for the reported seizure of the smuggled textile materials. We hope that this development is not another passing fad and is in line with the mood of the country for change. An enduring commitment of the Customs to do its job is to protect local producers and help the country ensure sustainable jobs,” the workers said in a statement by their General Secretary, Comrade Issa Aremu.

According to Comrade Aremu, the major threat to the realization of the great potential of Nigeria in textile production is the high influx of counterfeit and smuggled goods. “Over 90 per cent of Nigeria’s huge market size is dominated by smuggled and counterfeit goods, killing local companies in Kano, Kaduna, Lagos, Guzau, Aba and Port Harcourt, and millions of direct and indirect associated local jobs.
“Remarkably, too, smuggling denies the government the much-needed revenue in unpaid custom duties. According to the Comptroller-General of Customs, Alhaji Diko Abdullahi, the duty value of the goods in one out of the uncovered 75 warehouses in Kano is N4.2bn. When we add the value duties of all the 75 warehouses, one will appreciate the enormous loss of revenue to the government,” Aremu said.

The workers called for the burning of the seized textile materials. In their words, “all the above efforts will end in vain unless the seized contraband textile materials are burnt in public like seized drugs otherwise they would find ways to the market, thereby defeating the ongoing efforts to curtail smuggling”.

Aremu called on President Muhammadu Buhari to reconstitute the Presidential Task Force on Destruction of Seized Textile Materials once chaired by the current governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir Ahmed el-Rufai.

He advised, “The task force should include all critical stakeholders, including labour. This is necessary in order to protect and strengthen our domestic textile industries and save Nigerians’ jobs. If we combine the fight against smuggling with uninterrupted supply of electricity, long-term cheap funds through the bank of Industry and government patronage of locally produced textiles (school uniforms, police and Customs uniforms), there is no doubt that textile industry in the fullest of time will come back.”

The traders’ insistence that they resorted to importing textile materials in view of the closure of textile factories in the country is drawing flaks from textile workers, who lashed back that the traders contributed in the first place to the misfortune that befell the textile factories through what they alleged was, and remains, their illegal and unbridled smuggling of textile materials into the country.

Will the Obasanjo regime treatment be revisited on the whopping N315bn worth of textile materials in the Customs’ grip? Both the affected traders in Kano state and textile workers, through their NUTGTWN, are tension-soaked on the outcome, each party hung on its interest.