The Senate President, David Mark, has been in the news calling on the federal government to ban the importation of goods that can be produced locally. While speaking at the maiden edition of the Made-in-Aba Fair in Abuja, Mr Mark argued that such a ban would ensure “a quick take-off of our industrial sector.”
“We have no business importing military boots when what is produced here locally is more superior to that which is brought into the country,” he said. “We have no reason to import ballot boxes for INEC. This locally made ballot box is actually better than the one INEC has been importing. Let us ban all that we can ban.”
We understand that Mr Mark felt the need to make such a call in order to win a few rounds of applause at an event which had mostly local producers. But we believe it is important to now wake Mr Mark to the fallacy of his argument.
It is important to establish from the onset that we recognise the impact of rising importation of goods on Nigeria’s economy, especially on the industrial sector. However, we do not feel that the situation warrants the call for a ban on goods that can be manufactured locally; at least not yet.
A better approach would be to critically examine the real, not perceived, challenges that limit the growth of our nation’s industrial sector and to find sustainable solutions.
A sudden ban on the importation of foreign goods without addressing the root causes of our poor industrialisation does not look to us like the sustainable solution for local producers who have to contend with epileptic power supply or multiple-taxation.
In fact, Nigeria has taken this route in the past without any significant success. In the 1980s, the Nigerian government pursued an import substitution industrialisation policy that sought to increase local production and protect local industries from the competitiveness of foreign goods. It soon realised that local industries did not have the capacity to meet the high demand for goods. It was forced to abandon the policy.
Not much has changed between when we first tried the import substitution and now. In some cases, things have grown worse.
We still lack the skills, infrastructure, and capital necessary for industrialisation that will meet our nation’s demand. This is why there is no justification for Mr Mark’s call for a return to the import substitution policy.
Instead, we are more inclined to agree with the call by President Goodluck Jonathan on manufacturers of foreign companies which export finished products to Nigeria to start manufacturing in the country.
It is imperative to point out that Nigeria currently lacks a coherent industrialisation policy. In May last year, the federal government inaugurated a committee on the formulation of a new industrial policy. It was chaired by Prof. Mike Kwanashe. Not much has been heard of the committee since.
Perhaps the time has come for Mr Mark to prevail on his colleagues at theNational Assembly to ask hard questions about where we are with our nation’s industrialisation policy; instead of him calling for a ban of goods without proper understanding of the ramifications.