Nigeria’s effort to revive its textile industry is running into a stubborn obstacle: rising dependence on imported fabrics. Textile imports rose 17% year-on-year to ₦267.7 billion in the first quarter of 2026, from ₦228.83 billion a year earlier, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics.
The increase highlights the gap between government ambitions to rebuild domestic textile production and the realities facing local manufacturers.
Nigeria once had one of Africa’s largest textile industries. At its peak, the country had between 167 and 180 textile mills, more than 700,000 spindles and over 17,000 looms. The industry directly employed between 500,000 and one million workers and supported a much wider network of cotton farmers, traders and other businesses. Kaduna became known as “Textile City”, while Kano, Funtua, Lagos and Aba developed into major textile centres.
That industrial base subsequently deteriorated under the weight of unreliable electricity, outdated machinery, weak access to finance, declining cotton production, policy inconsistencies and competition from imported and smuggled fabrics. Punch reports that the number of registered textile companies fell sharply between the mid-1990s and mid-2000s, while formal employment also collapsed.
The revival effort is now taking shape on several fronts. The Aba garment cluster, with about 100,000 producers according to industry estimates, demonstrates the scale of Nigeria’s surviving informal and small-scale manufacturing capacity.
In the north, the Textile Revival Implementation Committee was established with federal ministries and the governments of Kano, Kaduna, Katsina, Gombe and Zamfara. Its original objective was to move Nigeria towards self-sufficiency in cotton production and textile materials within three years.
But imports remain a formidable competitor. Chinese-made fabrics have long featured prominently in Nigeria’s textile import and smuggling problem, while porous borders have allowed cheaper foreign products to compete with manufacturers facing high domestic production costs. Research has also documented the movement of Chinese textile products into northern Nigerian markets through regional trade routes.
The regional competition shows what Nigeria is missing. Bangladesh’s garment industry alone remains a major export engine, accounting for about 80% of the country’s exports and employing roughly four million workers. Vietnam, meanwhile, remains one of the world’s leading apparel exporters.
For Nigeria, the immediate challenge is therefore not a shortage of revival plans but the cost of production. Reliable electricity, affordable long-term financing, modern machinery, stronger cotton supply chains and more effective customs enforcement will determine whether the next textile revival becomes an industrial recovery or another policy cycle.
The ₦267.7 billion import bill is a warning: Nigeria cannot rebuild a competitive textile industry if locally made fabrics remain more expensive and less reliable than imported alternatives.
