Nigeria’s Textile Mills Leave 47% Capacity Idle as Import Ban Debated
Nigeria’s textile, apparel, and footwear manufacturers operated at just 53.05% of their installed capacity over the past year, leaving nearly half of the country’s domestic production potential entirely idle.
Data analyzed from the Central Bank of Nigeria and National Bureau of Statistics bulletins reveals a minor uptick from 50.72% capacity utilization in 2024. But the sector remained pinned below 55% across all four quarters, underscoring the deep-seated structural bottlenecks choking off local factory floors.
The figures arrive at a tense moment for the nation’s industrial policy. The Nigerian Senate is pressing for a total ban on textile imports to plug a $6 billion annual drain in foreign exchange and protect domestic mills. Yet trade experts warn that forcing an import ban when fewer than 20 operational textile mills remain standing risks creating massive market shortages.
“The Senate is right that our textile industry must be revived,” said Prof. Adesoji Adesugba, an industrial strategist and former investment promotion chief. “But an immediate import ban would hand the market to smugglers and repeat 30 years of costly failure.”
The collapse of local cotton farming has compounded the crisis. National cotton production plummeted from 2.5 million metric tonnes in 2001 to 10,000 metric tonnes in 2025.
Compounding the raw material shortage are crippling power bills and high borrowing costs. Textile manufacturing relies heavily on continuous power for spinning, weaving, and wet processing, leaving producers exposed to expensive diesel generation and rising grid tariffs.
Producers also face prohibitive interest rates that make modernizing obsolete equipment nearly impossible. Manufacturers Association of Nigeria Director-General Segun Ajayi-Kadir has repeatedly cited expensive capital and foreign exchange scarcity as major drags on output across the broader industrial sector.
Decades of government intervention—including the 100 billion naira Cotton, Textile and Garment Fund and 2019 central bank forex restrictions—have struggled to reverse the decline. Analysts contend that until energy tariffs stabilize, rural security improves for cotton farmers, and long-term single-digit financing becomes available, Nigerian textile mills will continue operating at half capacity.
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