Aba: A neglected opportunity

 Success, in any field of human activity, is oftentimes defined as a phenomenon that results from a meeting of hard work with opportunity, presupposing that individuals, institutions or nations like Nigeria that have failed or are yet to succeed have either failed to see or have neglected existing opportunities, or have failed to work hard in the face of obvious opportunities.

For Nigeria as a nation, nothing could be truer than the former. Here is a nation richly endowed with both human and material resources, but unfortunately burdened with leaders who come to governance blind to opportunities that could be tapped into to build a great nation.

Global competitiveness is all about manufacturing and entrepreneurial abilities of nations. If at all, Nigeria occupies a very tiny space in this connection, and the reason is not that it does not have all it takes to rank among the first, but because it has, regrettably, chosen to neglect the opportunities that could make it competitive.

Aba, a sprawling industrial town in Abia State, South-East Nigeria, remains, till tomorrow, a metaphor for enterprise and entrepreneurship in Nigeria with its potentially great industrial clusters. Indeed, Aba epitomises the commercial enterprise, ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit that define the geographical entity called Igboland in Nigeria.

We note with pain that Aba, with its huge potential and opportunity for industrial and economic growth, has been brazenly neglected by the Federal Government, which spends millions of dollars globe-trotting in search of foreign direct investment.

Globalisation is here, and we believe that in an increasingly globalised world defined by ever-lowering barriers to trade, any attempt at establishing a manufacturing base is difficult, making the search for competitive/comparative advantage a lot more critical. In our opinion, if Nigeria and, indeed, other African countries have any prospects of manufacturing, they have to opt for the low-tech end of manufacturing, which is where Aba becomes critical.

The World Bank Enterprise Survey data for 89 countries reveals that sub-Saharan Africa is mainly located at the less sophisticated end of the technology spectrum and thus its natural comparative advantage is likely to be low-tech rather than high-tech manufacturing. The survey identifies the low-tech manufacturing opportunities as agro-processing, food and beverages, leather, wood processing and wood products, simple metal products, textiles, and garments.

Aba as a commercial city is known for its skilful artisans including tailors, footwear makers and other entrepreneurial endeavours, and the quality of their products is competitive. We recall with nostalgia shirts and shoes made by these Aba ‘industrialists’ which compared favourably with any from anywhere else in the world in terms of quality of design, but are no longer found in the market because the artisans, weary of infrastructure challenges, especially power, have left to ride ‘okada’ on the streets of Aba. This neglect, for us, is another way government shoots itself in the foot given that turning around and developing Aba with its industrial clusters does not require up to 50 percent of government’s investment in the search for ever-elusive and never-to-come foreign investors.

We agree totally with UNCTAD’s ‘Economic Development in Africa Report 2013’ subtitled ‘Intra-African Trade: Unlocking Private Sector Dynamism’, which recommends that expanding the productive capacity of an economy involves measures such as upgrading infrastructure, improving the skills of domestic workforces, encouraging and enabling entrepreneurship, and increasing the size of existing manufacturing firms so that they can satisfy larger markets and produce their goods with greater economies of scale.

We also agree with the report that government should strengthen the private sector by making finance more accessible and less costly, enhance mechanisms for consultation with the private sector and, above all, get the issue of power right to drive industrialisation and urbanisation.