By Yinka Kolawole
Nigeria’s ambition to become Africa’s industrial hub will depend on its ability to lower production costs, attract manufacturing investment, create jobs and deepen domestic value addition, rather than simply increase the volume of goods produced locally, President of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Francis Meshioye, has said.
Meshioye said a competitive manufacturing sector would expand the economy’s productive base, strengthen government revenue and enable Nigerian businesses to capture a larger share of African and global markets.
He spoke on Monday, at the opening of MAN’s 54th Annual General Meeting (AGM) and Made-in-Nigeria Exhibition in Lagos, with the theme, “Leveraging National Industrial Policy to Position Nigeria as Africa’s Industrial Hub.”
According to him, achieving the ambition requires an operating environment that allows manufacturers to produce competitively, deepen local value addition, develop domestic supply chains, invest in technology and capacity, and access markets within Africa and beyond.
He said industrial policy must therefore translate into practical improvements in the conditions facing businesses, particularly the cost and reliability of energy, access to finance, availability of industrial inputs, logistics and regulatory predictability.
“For manufacturers, positioning Nigeria as an industrial hub requires more than expanding the volume of domestic production. It requires an operating environment that enables firms to produce competitively, deepen local value addition, develop domestic supply chains, invest in technology and capacity, and access markets within Africa and beyond,” Meshioye said.
He urged government to accelerate implementation of policies promoting local content and patronage of Made-in-Nigeria products, saying stronger domestic manufacturing would be critical to job creation, investment and sustainable economic growth.
Meshioye noted that real manufacturing output grew by 3.29 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2026, while capacity utilisation also improved. However, he said rising production costs remained a major constraint on manufacturers’ ability to invest and scale.
He also noted that Nigeria imported about N3.53 trillion worth of raw materials in the first half of 2026, highlighting the need to strengthen domestic production of industrial inputs.
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