Local manufactured goods: Business tycoon tell Lawmakers, Nigerians to emulate China

Qtn: Am I right to say that Nigerian manufacturers are not helping the economy, by not meeting up with the demand by the people, thus they end up exporting what you are supposed to be producing here?

Ans: No! You are not right my brother; it is not easy to do well, when the country isn’t doing well. Nigeria isn’t doing well in the sense that, Nigerian manufacturers manufacture and produce furniture in Prince Interiors Ltd, and other manufacturing companies, but Nigerians import them and the 10th Senate and the National Assembly as a whole are using those imported furniture in their offices, homes, rooms and other places; not only foreign furniture, but other foreign goods that are produced in their country, including foreign vehicles.

I respect Distinguished Legislators of the 10th Senate, but I enjoin them to look into what other nations did and survived and are still doing and surviving. We can’t continue gambling on what won’t work, and as you can see, things are not working out economically. What we should do is to borrow ideas from the counties that passed from what we are experiencing now.

In order to build their economy, 20 years ago, China that was passing through what we are passing through now, shut their border and started to use what they were producing. What we should do now is to close the border to what we can produce and be using them, instead of importing them. This country is blessed by God with manpower, natural resources and; we have a population of over 200 million and the timber we have for furniture gives us the best timber you can think of all over the world. We can feed ourselves with the food we produce, clothe ourselves with cloths produced in this country, among others. 

Qtn: As a specialist in the area of furniture – making, can your furniture compete favourably with their foreign counterparts?

Ans: Yes! Our furniture can compete favourably with their foreign counterparts. Although, we need more, but we have the machines to outdo our foreign competitors, but the problems we are encountering are in the area of energy. They export our gas to our neighboring countries, making them expensive and unavailable here. So the best thing to do is to close the border to all those things that will affect our economy negatively. If we can shut our borders, at least for four years to address our economy, I don’t see what is wrong in doing that.

Another problem is inflation, which is being caused by excessive importation, instead of producing our own for export too. To encourage manufacturers to produce enough for use domestically and also for exportation, will go a long way to address our unfavourable balance of trade, at the international trade, that has over the time been affecting our economy in small measure.

The former Central Bank Nigeria (CBN) governor, Sanusi condemned in its entirety, the speed at which Nigeria was importing, even a toothpick, something that could be produced locally in the country. I wonder how a nation that does that would survive. We export money (?); do capital flight to go and give other nations jobs and import poverty to ourselves. Today see where it has landed us.

Qtn: It looks like you are opposing the government in power, aren’t you?

Ans: No! We are in support of the Renewed Hope Agenda policy of President Ahmed Bola Tinubu. This isn’t about Mr President or any person, we are talking about Nigeria. I am only pointing all these out for the government in power to know our plights, which if considered will go a long way. We know that things are hard, but I believe that with the policy in place, it will soon be okay. As you can see, the Naira is gradually appreciating and a bottle of water is still sold at N120 as against a Dollar plus in the US. Things are really bad, but nothing good comes easy. That is why we should all join hands to support the government.

As you can also see, the National Assembly under the leadership of His Excellency Godswill Akpabio, a former governor and later a minister is expected to deliver. A careful look at the senators would show you that they are out for business. So I am not opposing the government, but I am only supporting them by saying the truth.

Qtn: With the importance of forest in timber production, for furniture, among others and with the increase in deforestation in Nigeria, how do you get wood, or have you people been importing them?

Ans: If there is anything Nigeria has in large quantities, it is forest, which produces the best timbers in the world. We have thick forests with timbers in states like Cross Rivers, Ondo, Taraba, Edo, just to mention, but a few. Let me tell you something, furniture production has taken another dimension. It has gone digital. We don’t need much wood to do furniture again; we mostly use sawdust to produce furniture. 

We need to have those machines imported, the way a Chinese company did 20 years ago. The Chinese government met the MD of a furniture company that is the founder of furniture in China, asked him how they can help him in his work which he has been doing manually, so as to be producing them in large quantities, in order to stop importing them. He told them, that the answer to their question was machines that were being manufactured in Italy. They then gave him the money to import those machines. Having imported the machines, instead of one bed in 10 days, he started to do 10 in a day. Due to the result, they asked him if they could bring Chinese boys to be trained, he allowed that and with those boys, each was doing 10 beds in a day, and 100 students would produce 1,000 beds in a day.

With the development, China began to produce any quantity of furniture they needed for local use and export too and they stopped importing from Italy. 

Qtn: The way you people make demand from the government is confusing. While some are talking about the high rate charged by banks for loans, others are talking about non patronizing by the government, while the rest are talking of nonrefundable loans, grants and closing the border, which one is paramount.

Ans: The solution is not in giving money to the people, because if you give money out without patronizing the person, it will be in vain. If you can’t sell what you produced, you will not only shut down business, but also you will not be able to pay back the money you were given on loan. You know that when you shut down business, it will affect your workers. 

As I said earlier, the solution is to close the border to those things we can produce in their country and the government and the people will start to buy and use them with pride. The government shouldn’t add problems to the one we have already. What they should do is to close the border to those things we can produce and we begin to use goods made in Nigeria. Let the government also reactivate our manufacturing companies. We had a good textile company in Kaduna, that needs reactivation. 

I want to inform you that the Chinese people come to Nigeria to cut our wood for export. They go to Bayelsa and Taraba, dash cars to their community heads, and go into forests and cut our trees, make timbers out of them for export and a cubic of these woods is sold at about $1,000. We are talking about oil, but these people cut these woods in large quantities and go away with them and nobody is asking questions. A cubic of these woods, we could sell at $1,000 and the officers and men of Nigeria Customs Services don’t know the value of what they have been moving out of this country. All they care to say is that the duty has been paid, without knowing the value of what these people have been taking out of this country. 

Qtn: Your Company is 24 years now, can you tell us how you have been emulating China to empower others?

Ans: As we speak now, the most important thing to my life is to prepare to train the carpenters that will take over from me, because Nigeria is losing them every day. Most of these young carpenters we trained in this company are leaving this country for Canada and Australia, because those countries they see as where there are greener pastures for them. In the next five years, you won’t have carpenters in this country and that is why I am building a vocational institute: Prince Interior Vocational Training Institute, by Naval Estate in Asokoro, here in Abuja, which will start by February next year.

This institute has about 99 components, including carpentry, iron – bending,  water gas welding, bricklaying, among others, and nobody is asking prince how he is sure that the institute starts immediately. Knowing the value of what we are doing, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) has indicated interest to partner with us now.

Qtn: We used to hear about Prince Interior and for some time now, we haven’t been hearing about this company, what efforts have you been making to let government know your plights?

Ans: We talk through the media. Recently, we went to the Senate in the National Assembly and we discussed at length with the Senate president, who promised to look into our plights and we are waiting for him, because I think that he understood why we were there. We explained to them that giving money to the sector wasn’t the problem. The problem, as I have explained earlier was non patronage of locally manufactured goods. If you give the money, without patronage, the business will collapse.

Although I respect them as the senior citizens, but I told them that they are one of the problems we have; the reason is that they are using imported cars, while we have companies that manufacture these cars in Nigeria; they are using imported furnitures, even the ones in their conference room are imported and we produce the ones that are far better than those foreign ones. Chinese are using furnitures from China and know what stops us from using furnitures from Nigeria. I have furnitures of about 30 year of life span, because we use the best woods to produce them. Most 5 – star hotels, schools and offices that were furnished with our furnitures from Prince Interior are being used, sat and slept on and nobody is complaining.

Qtn: In order to give the country favourable ballance of trade at the international level, what efforts are you making to be exporting these products of yours?

Ans: We would like to export our products, but the encouragement from the government isn’t there. The Honourable Minister, Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment (FMITI) is expected to come to know what we are doing, through Nigeria Export Promotion Council (NEPC); to know what we are doing internally, but they never cared to come. Under this condition, it won’t be easy for you to get license for exportation of our goods. In 2010, we went to China with NEPC and the the DG to hear all the stories about closing boarder and the man told us all these stories about closing boarder to what we could produce and the DG was there and I was one of those in the entourage. The Chinese man made out time to lecture us in details on the importance of closing boarders to what we could produce, and the DG promised to to do something about it. It is now about 14 years and nothing has happened.