The Director-General of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Segun Ajayi-Kadir, has revealed that Nigeria’s manufacturing sector lost 18,000 jobs in 2024, attributing the decline to a hostile business climate and worsening economic conditions.
Speaking at the 2025 BusinessDay Manufacturing Conference, Ajayi-Kadir painted a bleak picture of the sector’s current state, citing inflation, low consumer purchasing power, rising production costs, and policy instability as key drivers of the downturn.
He disclosed that unsold inventory surged by 87.5% to ₦2.14 trillion in 2024, as weakened demand left products stagnating on shelves. He also lamented Nigeria’s 97th-place ranking on the Global Competitive Industrial Performance Index 44 places behind South Africa.
“Despite the sector’s strategic importance, its full potential remains untapped due to infrastructure deficits, inconsistent policies, and inadequate government support,” he said.
Key performance indicators, he noted, have steadily declined. Growth slipped from 1.40% in 2023 to 1.38% in 2024, while capacity utilisation dropped to 57%, far below the 73.3% recorded in 1981. The manufacturing sector’s GDP contribution has dwindled from 29.9% to 8.6% over the same period.
Ajayi-Kadir emphasized the devastating impact of poor infrastructure on manufacturing. Only 37% of Nigeria’s 200,000km road network is in good condition, disrupting logistics and inflating costs. “There are 53 checkpoints between Mile 2 and Seme border, and 34 checkpoints on the 20km Seme–Badagry route alone. This inefficiency severely undermines competitiveness,” he added.
He also decried rising borrowing costs, noting that interest rates climbed to 35.5% in 2024 from 28.06% the previous year—far above South Africa’s 8%. Meanwhile, dumped and smuggled goods, especially in the textile and electronics sectors, continue to erode market share from local producers.
Non-oil export contributions fell drastically from 82.37% in 2019 to just 25.13% in 2024, further exposing Nigeria’s widening trade imbalance.
To rescue the sector, Ajayi-Kadir urged the federal government to implement sweeping reforms, including:
- Gazetting and executing a ‘Nigeria First Policy’
- Ensuring stable and predictable policies
- Upgrading infrastructure and logistics networks
- Expanding access to long-term funding
- Fast-tracking the Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano (AKK) gas pipeline
- Enhancing policy dialogue and export intelligence
“The government bears the primary responsibility of enabling growth. Without immediate and strategic interventions, the manufacturing sector may continue its descent,” he warned.
