Rifat Islam
Henry Ujah, a Nigerian citizen in Dhaka, left his frustration back at home and now emerges as a successful entrepreneur in his home country riding on Bangladesh’s garments industry.
Ujah, who had been outsourcing cheap garments items from Bangladesh over the past four years, kept his feet on the ground and started making a profit as high as three times the sourcing price.
“I buy each pair of jeans at Tk 300 in Dhaka and sell approximately at Tk 1000 in Nigerian city Lagos,” Ujah said with a smile.
“I earn Tk 2,00,000 on average a month excluding all of my operation costs,” Ujah added.
Beaming with energy and dynamism at his 38, Ujah looks very friendly with the shop owners of Bangabazar in the capital, Dhaka.
He was in a hurry to meet the target of shipping 3,500 to 5,000 pieces of RMG products to his home town Lagos as the date for Eid was nearing fast.
“Bondhu (friend), don’t give me faulty products,” said Ujah to Kutu Mia, a shop owner, with a smiling face as he was buying garments products from him.
Like Ujah, hundreds of Nigerians, who live in Uttara, Mirpur, Basundhara and Pallabi areas of the capital, are involved in outsourcing garments items for local consumption in Nigeria.
“I live near Uttara with 11 of my Nigerian friends. We spend six months in Bangladesh then go back to our country for two months to spend vacations,” Ujah said.
According to the Nigerian government, every year the country spends $4 billion on importing textiles and ready-made garment materials and loses $2 billion because products make inroads into Nigeria.
Nigerian authorities are becoming heavy-handed on the import of garments to give the local industries a chance to rise as the Nigerian Customs Service seized textiles items worth 11 billion Nigerian Naira in Lagos in July 2019.
When he was asked about the problems he had been facing, Ujah said, “No…No… And I am out of any problem and don’t get involved with any illegal affairs.”
According to the Oxford Business Group, Nigeria currently has 25 textile mills, which run at 40 per cent of their capacity on average, employing around 25,000 people in total.
This fragile textile industry, affected by lack of sufficient electricity supply and proper investment, opened the window for outsourcers like Ujah.
On October 30, the Nigerian minister for industry, trade and investment Otunba Adebayo offered Bangladeshi investors to set up a joint venture in the RMG or textile sector. The bilateral trade between Bangladesh and Nigeria has reached $ 144.75 million in the fiscal year 2019-20.
