By Festus Obot
The 30% Raw Materials Value Addition being championed by the Raw Materials Research and Development Council (RMRDC) is projected to save the nation over $3.7 billion dollars annually expended on import of raw materials by industries and manufacturers in Nigeria. The Director General of RMRDC, Professor Nnanyelugo Ike-Muonso disclosed this in his keynote address presentation at the 37th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) held in Enugu for the south east States of Anambra, Ebonyi and Enugu.
Delivering his address as the keynote speaker at the AGM which had its theme: “Exploring Opportunities for Backward Integration and Local Raw Materials for the Manufacturing Sector”, Prof Ike-Muonso lamented that in the first quarter of 2025 alone, Nigeria spent over N3.53 trillion naira on import of raw materials for the manufacturing sector. He stressed that this figure is expected to more than double by the end of the year. According to the RMRDC DG, “…that is N3.53 trillion not circulating in our local economy, not creating jobs for our youth, and not building resilience in our supply chains. Instead, it represents a massive haemorrhage of our foreign exchange reserves and a direct export of our prosperity to other countries”.
Describing the 30% Value Addition Bill currently awaiting President Bola Tinubu’s assent, as a game changer for Nigeria’s industrial transformation and economic growth, Prof Ike-Muonso challenged manufacturers, industrialists, processors to transition from being import dependent to aggressively embrace backward integration. He stressed that backward integration is not only a corporate social responsibility but the central pillar of Nigeria’s industrial strategy. The RMRDC DG declared that “the era of “import and package” is dead, and the era of “process and produce” must now begin.
Prof Ike-Muonso called on all to “let us build the Nigeria we aspire to: where local sourcing is the norm, backward integration is the heartbeat of industry, value is captured domestically, jobs are created, communities are transformed, foreign exchange is conserved, and the manufacturing sector leads our journey into the future, he emphasized.
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In her welcome address, the Chairman of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) Southeast (Anambra, Enugu and Ebonyi States) branch, Lady Ada Chukwudozie informed participants that “backward integration and local sourcing offer the surest path to lowering production costs, stabilizing supply chains, strengthening MSMEs, creating jobs, and expanding Nigeria’s industrial capacity”.
The MAN Chairman identified the triple burden affecting the operating environment in the region to include: forex and import sourcing crisis, raw materials bottlenecks, and energy costs and unjust tariffs.
She described the 2025 AGM as a “platform for introspection, policy review, and strategic action. It allows us to evaluate the business environment, strengthen collaboration, and define the direction for manufacturing across our region”. She noted further that the theme of the 2025 AGM was deliberately chosen because it speaks directly to the realities of the business environment of the south east region.
