The textile industry was one of the booming sub-sectors of the Nigerian economy in the post independence years.
Driven by locally grown cotton and with a huge demand for clothing by a fast growing population, it provided direct and indirect employment to hundreds of thousands of Nigerians for several decades.

Between 1985 and 1991, Nigeria’s textile industry recorded an annual growth of 67 per cent. In that period textile companies numbered around 180, employing about a million people, and accounting for over 60 per cent of the textile industry capacity in West Africa.

The story, however, changed in the early nineties when the sector took a massive dive. From about 180 thriving textile companies, the number came down to almost zero.

Over the years, there has been a steady decline in the operations of textile firms and then an eventual collapse of the industry, which has led to a loss of jobs, dearth of skilled manpower, low capacity utilization and drop in revenue due to lack of excise duties.

The dip in the fortunes of the industry was due to the influx of cheap textiles and fabrics into the country from all over the world and mainly from China.

Now the country is trying to attract the necessary investments into cotton farming and textile manufacturing and so become a major producer and exporter of textiles in the world.