How textiles closure cost over 2,700 lives in Kaduna

A recent report by the Coalition of Closed Unpaid Textiles Workers, Kaduna State chapter, indicates that over 2,700 ex-workers of the shutdown textiles companies and family members have so far lost their lives. The report also shows that many living members of the coalition have also developed one sickness or the other, which are likely […]

A recent report by the Coalition of Closed Unpaid Textiles Workers, Kaduna State chapter, indicates that over 2,700 ex-workers of the shutdown textiles companies and family members have so far lost their lives. The report also shows that many living members of the coalition have also developed one sickness or the other, which are likely to lead to more deaths if nothing is urgently done to salvage the situation.
It is no more news that since most of Nigeria’s textile mills shutdown, causing many people to lose their means of livelihood, the attendant consequences have continued to multiply while lives are frequently being lost.       
Apart from been one of the key industries that greeted the 1960 independence, the textile industry was a significant non-oil sector of the economy, which provided direct and indirect employment to the masses. Besides, varied and thriving economic activities were witnessed within the textiles gates and around the host communities. The sector was such a boom that it was rated the second largest in Africa after South Africa.
Chief among the textiles companies are Kaduna Textile Ltd (KTL), Arewa Textiles Plc, United Nigerian Textile Plc, Supertex, Nortex Nigerian Ltd and Finetex Nigerian Ltd.  Others are Gaskiya Textiles Mill, Kano Textile Ltd, Aba Textiles, Zamfara Textiles Ltd, Asaba Textiles Ltd, African Textile Mill Plc and Tofa Textiles among others.
But today, the industry has become a shadow of itself as most of the aforementioned companies have shut down and the former workers’ gratuities are yet to be paid. Even the few functioning plants are operating far below their installed capacities.
In an effort to revive the moribund industry, the federal government instituted a N100 billion Cotton, Textile and Garment (CTG) bailout fund which is managed and disbursed by the Bank of Industry (BOI). Till date however, the bailout fund is yet to bring the textile mills back to life fully.
Meanwhile, an estimated 600, 000 people have since been rendered jobless. Worse still, it has led to loss of many lives, as Kaduna State alone has recorded over 2,700 deaths, according to the Coalition of Closed Unpaid Textiles Workers.
The last recorded death by the group is that of Mr. Emmanuel Ikeh, who worked in Arewa Textiles until it shutdown. The deceased’s widow, Mary, told Weekly Trust that her husband died of typhoid. She said the illness was not life-threatening initially, but because he could not afford to treat himself properly as his menial job as a hired farmer and occasional brick-layer, could hardly sustain him and his family. Weekly Trust also gathered that the family’s condition worsened when Ikeh lost all his property to the 2013 flood in Kaduna.
“After the flood, we lost all our property and we could not get help from anywhere, until a ‘Good Samaritan’ rented these two rooms for us and paid for a few months. We have no chairs to sit on or bed to sleep on except mats,” Mary said.
“When the typhoid started he was treated and he became well. About a month later the typhoid came back forcefully, but we could not afford effective treatment and all his friends he reached out to for money turned him down. Now I have six children that I am taking care of. My husband and I usually farm for people and when he died I continued the work as a hired farmer. I break firewood for people as well. But the money I make cannot take care of me and my family,” the widow said sorrowfully.
Another widow of a former textile worker, Asabe Audu, while recounting her ordeal, said that her husband was a healthy man who served for many years in KTL, but became hypertensive as soon as the company shutdown and died a year after. She added that she has also lost two children after her husband’s death because of her inability to provide quality health care for them.
Asabe said she had been surviving on the little money she makes from plaiting hair in Nasarawa market in Kaduna until last year when her shop got burnt. Till date, she has been unable to afford another shop.
Similarly, Gladys Odey, whose husband worked in Nortex, said her husband immediately developed high blood pressure and battled with it until 2012, when he finally died. On how she was surviving, Gladys said: “I go from one restaurant to the other washing plates in order to feed my children. The money I get from the effort cannot sustain the family. Two of my children have dropped out of school because I can’t continue paying their school fees and there is nobody to help me.”
When contacted, chairman of the coalition, Comrade Wordam Simdik, said the number of ex-workers who die as a result of the closure of the textiles and the non-payment of their benefits was over 2,700.
“The recorded workers’ deaths which is as a result of lack of money for medical healthcare is over 1,300, while that of their beloved families stood at 1,400,” Simdik told Weekly Trust.
“Since 2002 when KTL shut down, Nortex and Finetex in 2003 and Arewa Textiles in 2004, our entitlements are yet to be paid, while our workers and members of their families are dying. So we decided to come together and establish this Coalition of Closed Unpaid Textiles Workers to struggle for our entitlements. We have not succeeded yet, but we will surely succeed someday because we have used most part of our lives to faithfully serve these companies and we have also contributed to the economic growth of this nation,” he added.
Simdik said most children of the former textiles workers are roaming the streets like beggars, while often times they get involved in anti-social vices and other criminal activities. Many of the ex-workers have also been driven from their homes by their landlords, while others got divorced by their wives.
On the N100 billion intervention fund, Simdik said it has been problematic all along as none of the shutdown textiles which desperately needed the money to inject life into their factories and commence operations ever got the money, except few textiles that are still only partly operating. He also said that the loan conditions are not favourable to the closed mills.
“In a situation where an intervention fund for the revival of the collapsed textile mills was instituted by the government and the conditions for accessing the money is unfavourable to the same factories for which the money was provided is pure contradiction,” he said. But the Bank of Industry said about 60 billion of the CTG fund has been disbursed to various beneficiaries under the same scheme.
“Over 60 percent has been committed to 52 companies in the Cotton, Textiles and Garment Industry as at March, 2013. The re-opening of United Nigeria Textiles Ltd in Kaduna is one of the numerous positive impacts of the scheme,” the bank said on its website.
National president of the National Union Textile, Garments and Tailoring Workers (NUTGTWN), Comrade Oladele Hunsu, while commenting on the issue, said that the textile industry in the 1980s used to be the second largest employer of labour after the federal government.
“But over the years, there was a steady decline in operations of the textiles and then eventual collapse of the industry, which has led to loss of jobs, dearth of skilled manpower, death of workers, low capacity utilisation and drop in government revenue due to lack of excise duties,” Hunsu said.
Regarding the N100 billion CTG fund, Hunsu said the industry has not witnessed any significant growth despite the textile revival fund. “The bailout fund was given to some textile manufacturers who have met the loan conditions at a single digit interest rate. Some manufacturers actually got the loan and it was judiciously utilized but I don’t have the list of beneficiaries,” he added.
Hunsu called on the government to ban further importation of textile materials or impose higher tariffs on imports, improve infrastructures and engage Asian government on best trade practices and chart a new course for reviving the textile industry.
“This will not only bring back jobs and boost economic activities again, but will also halt the progression of deaths among the unpaid textiles workers,” he said.