Stakeholders in the African fashion industry are pushing for an estimated $500 billion fashion economy at the ongoing Creative African Nexus taking place in Lagos, writes Charles Ajunwa
Since Thursday, the Wole Soyinka Centre for Culture and the Creative Arts, formerly the National Arts Theatre, Lagos, has been hosting Africans from different fields of endeavour at the ongoing CANEX WKND 2026, which ends tomorrow.
All the floors in the round structure which hosted FESTAC 77, were occupied by colourful stands for fashion installation, arts exhibition, creative economy technology showcase and innovation lab, music, sports, gastronomy and culinary art hub. Some of the halls were used for masterclasses where experts shared their experiences.
The Ministry of Art, Culture, Tourism and Creative Economy which partnered Confederation of African Fashion (CAFA), attracted visitors from different walks of life.
Nigeria became the first country to sign the African Fashion Industry Growth Charter on November 5, 2025, with the Minister of Art, Culture, Tourism and Creative Economy, Hannatu Musa Musawa, signing on behalf of the federal government.
After cutting the tape declaring open the FMACTCE/CAFA stand, Musa said the “African Fashion Industry Growth Charter is important for us as Africans and extension of African Caribbean.
“What many people don’t know is that CAFA has been very instrumental to me expressing myself in the last few years that I’ve been Minister of Art, Culture, Tourism and the Creative Economy, and my hope is that that will translate into something very tangible economically, jobs, and also beyond that, a unity for Africa and expression, pride, soft power, everything that we need to build on the industry.
Apart from policy, the minister emphasised that, “it is very important for us to have capacity building, and that can only happen through infrastructure, and one of the things we are doing actively is to ensure that we have hubs all over Nigeria, and we are in progress, and hopefully, this will add to economic growth, job creation, and so many great things that will come out of this industry.”
She added, “Afroliganza seeks to build a structured, values-driven fashion economy rooted in African heritage, led by African institutions, and positioned for global impact.”
CAFA President, Prof. Lai Labode, speaking on achieving $500 million African fashion industry, said, “Nigeria, Africa and the rest of Africa we don’t have a shortage of talents and what Africa needs is structure. Money always follow structure. You have seen the works that Afreximbank has done and many other institutions, you found that that it’s time for us to be able to unite when it comes to policy. Hence, the establishment of the Confederation of African Fashion (CAFA), which is the universal policy body for all African countries. November 5, 2026, makes it exactly one year that Nigeria signed. Of course, we’re registered in Rwanda.
There’s quite a bit of work already going on and we’re building this on the charter that we’ve put together. It’s called the African Fashion Industry Growth Charter.
“This charter is one that finally we believe that we unite Africa and we can push truly from a $60 billion fashion economy to $500 billion. It is built on 10 pillars. The first pillar is policy. United policy. The second is cultivation. So, you can imagine a place like Brazil exporting $5.3 billion worth of cotton and imagine a place like China where they will grow the cotton and process it and make almost $300 billion.
“Africa cannot afford just to sell cotton. They will come to processing. Processing is important and it’s one of the ways to create jobs as the case may be and we must invest heavily in that. Aside from processing itself, we have to look at intellectual property.
“Intellectual property is such a big deal that if you look at the economy of Europe, they are called IP-intensive industries. They provide almost half of their GDP. Just imagine what Africa is losing with that and they will look at counterfeiting. Imagine as organised as Europe is. Europe still loses about 12 billion euros every year. Just imagine what Africa is actually losing. Then, of course, we come to logistics. Logistics, everybody talks about making big money from fashion, but there’s a lot of investments behind it.”
In her remarks, the owner of Nike Art Gallery, Chief Nike Davies-Okundaye said, “Our fashion is our heritage and we must always adore it. And the first person who is not ashamed to wear our cloth anytime, even when it’s hot, is Lai Olabode. He is our fashion king in Nigeria. We are here today, to honour him for putting Nigerian fashion into the runway for the youths to continue.
“The challenge in creative fashion industry is that we have to bring back the textile industry so that we can producing our nwn textile in Nigeria.”
Founder, Olori Art Foundation, Mrs. Aina Davies, said “Africa’s past is definitely the future, and I think being aware of our culture and our knowledge of our culture will help us be proud of where we are from, but also making the fashion accessible.
“One of the biggest challenges African fashion has when serving a global audience is having global quality standards.”
On protection of African designers, she said “We have to document our culture brought by ourselves. We have to own our own narratives. Because so far, a lot of our culture has been documented and shared by the West through the eyes of the British. We have to share our own stories and our own narratives throughout the land. And only then will we be able to really own and play what we stand for.”