Post by Trade facilitator on May 20, 2018 19:19:49 GMT 1
China, last year, acquired thousands of hectares of land in Lagos to plant rubber to meet its industrial needs. Rubber is needed for all sorts of materials from the surgeon's knives to aircraft tyres. And in the days of genuine private enterprises in Nigeria, rubber was a leading contributor to the annual budget under the colonial masters.
The late Jimoh Odutola, one of the pioneer industrialists in Nigeria, once said that the Midwest area (known today as Edo and Delta states) was the "economic point" of this country because of its wealth in rubber and timber. In fact, there was nothing like the grinding poverty and unemployment one finds today in this country in the Midwest of the 1940s and 1950s. The area was rich in timber, rubber and palm plantations. There were foods, fish, bulls and buttocks aplenty. So when one estate surveyor told me last week that Dunlop Nigeria Limited had sold its massive Ikeja property for N1.7 billion, I was taken aback to my youth and the healthy life we lived in the Midwest, West and Lagos, thanks to the contribution of rubber.
So Dunlop has finally stopped its production of tyres, accessories and allied goods to concentrate on importing them to Nigeria? This is industrialisation on reverse gear. What was ringing in my head also was the question posed by a colleague in one of our trips to Enugu. We were bound for Sapele to the state for our annual (Brand Journalists' Association of Nigeria) conference. He asked: "Fadare, what happened to our rubber plantations? That was our wealth in the Midwest!" He was right. As an Itsekiri, he knew it was rubber that made early millionaires like Festus Sam Okotie-Eboh, J.A Thomas, Palmer, John Edokpolo, Joshua Idehen, Garrick and others in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Add to them also were the sprawling rubber plantations of Lawrence, Morgan, Erimona, Bazuaye, Bello-Osagie, Agbotan and others of the epoch who made agriculture very attractive and rewarding there.
Rubber attracted many people to swarm in the Midwest from the East and the West. Many of her mother's farm hands from across the Niger became graduates and entrepreneurs because they used the proceeds of their labour wisely. Greeks like Pa. S. Thormopulos, John Mandilas, Mandrides, Karaberis and others made their wealth from the rubber and palm produce trade. They spoke Bini fluently. In the peak of the rubber boom in the opening years of the 1950s, some people smoked the West African Currency Board's £1 note to show that they "had arrived" in Benin City and Sapele in those crazy days as "commission agents" and fronts of people in power who now abuse our oil money.
Those entrepreneurs of the 1940s and 1950s earned their wealth. They did not drain the treasury dry as they do today. What crosses one's mind here is that while rubber has been neglected in Nigeria, China and India regard it as a valuable asset! And this poser is meant for the Edo State, Delta State and Cross River states government. Why won't Dunlop be challenged? What has happened to the Michelin plantation in Cross River State and the many government plantations in Edo and Delta - themselves investments planned for major phases of agricultural development to feed motor assembly and other industries and other industries that have multiplier effects?
Dunlop came to Ikeja in 1962 with hopes to play a major role in the industrial destination of Nigeria which was wisely planned by Nigerian nationalists in politics, the civil service and the organised private sector. The academia was not left out. Everybody worked for a self-sufficient Nigeria that would be the envy of the black man because of its many human, natural and mineral endowments. Nigeria proved to have some of the fastest learners in the history of industrial development. The performance of Volkswagen of Nigeria in three years of its inception surpassed that of Brazil in 10 years. It was the same story in all the other industries that have now collapsed because of poor and visionless leadership characterised by the Second Republic. Things have never been the same since then. But with a man of vision and political will at the top, Nigeria can rewrite its history positively within a year because it has all the endowments needed for greatness.
Now, it is a show of vainglory in a journey destined to end in economic and political calamity because the people are not part of the calculations of governance.
Each man is the architect of his own fortune. We started brilliantly because we had positive dreamers who saw this nation favourably on the global scope. They had self-pride and felt they were in competition with others and so should spare no leisure to catch up with the developed countries. The industries Ahmadu Bello left behind in the North and to which Audu Bako, Abba Kyari and Joseph D. Gomwalk added more were positive proofs of their resourcefulness. What Obafemi Awolowo left in the West, to which Dennis Osadebay, Sam Ogbemudia and Lateef Jakande added their quotas, are there for all to see though now vandalised. Was Michael Okpara a Nigerian when he was industrialising the East and even thinking of a cattle ranch of world-class stature in Obudu? This is the difference between then and now.
When the Midwest Region was created in 1963, Osadebay and his colleagues forgot about building palaces. Permanent secretaries squatted in prefabricated buildings as offices. But under two years, they had established the Asaba Textile Mills, Ukpilla Cement and Ughelli Glass that offered jobs to thousands of people. And the multiplier effects were positive because they also created entrepreneurs.
Where a government wastes money refurbishing airports and other white elephants instead of reviving and expanding it's industrial base, it is consigned to the dustbin of history. Edo and Delta States governors should replace Dunlop with thriving tyre factory to be based probably in Sapele. Their attention should shift from oil to rubber and timber. The plantations and reserves must be resuscitated. Rivers and Cross Rivers States governments should revive Michelin tyres. Rivers has a lot of gas that it could now independently pipe to supply industries in Rivers and adjoining states to regain vitality. The same applies to Edo and Delta States.
The late Jimoh Odutola, one of the pioneer industrialists in Nigeria, once said that the Midwest area (known today as Edo and Delta states) was the "economic point" of this country because of its wealth in rubber and timber. In fact, there was nothing like the grinding poverty and unemployment one finds today in this country in the Midwest of the 1940s and 1950s. The area was rich in timber, rubber and palm plantations. There were foods, fish, bulls and buttocks aplenty. So when one estate surveyor told me last week that Dunlop Nigeria Limited had sold its massive Ikeja property for N1.7 billion, I was taken aback to my youth and the healthy life we lived in the Midwest, West and Lagos, thanks to the contribution of rubber.
So Dunlop has finally stopped its production of tyres, accessories and allied goods to concentrate on importing them to Nigeria? This is industrialisation on reverse gear. What was ringing in my head also was the question posed by a colleague in one of our trips to Enugu. We were bound for Sapele to the state for our annual (Brand Journalists' Association of Nigeria) conference. He asked: "Fadare, what happened to our rubber plantations? That was our wealth in the Midwest!" He was right. As an Itsekiri, he knew it was rubber that made early millionaires like Festus Sam Okotie-Eboh, J.A Thomas, Palmer, John Edokpolo, Joshua Idehen, Garrick and others in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Add to them also were the sprawling rubber plantations of Lawrence, Morgan, Erimona, Bazuaye, Bello-Osagie, Agbotan and others of the epoch who made agriculture very attractive and rewarding there.
Rubber attracted many people to swarm in the Midwest from the East and the West. Many of her mother's farm hands from across the Niger became graduates and entrepreneurs because they used the proceeds of their labour wisely. Greeks like Pa. S. Thormopulos, John Mandilas, Mandrides, Karaberis and others made their wealth from the rubber and palm produce trade. They spoke Bini fluently. In the peak of the rubber boom in the opening years of the 1950s, some people smoked the West African Currency Board's £1 note to show that they "had arrived" in Benin City and Sapele in those crazy days as "commission agents" and fronts of people in power who now abuse our oil money.
Those entrepreneurs of the 1940s and 1950s earned their wealth. They did not drain the treasury dry as they do today. What crosses one's mind here is that while rubber has been neglected in Nigeria, China and India regard it as a valuable asset! And this poser is meant for the Edo State, Delta State and Cross River states government. Why won't Dunlop be challenged? What has happened to the Michelin plantation in Cross River State and the many government plantations in Edo and Delta - themselves investments planned for major phases of agricultural development to feed motor assembly and other industries and other industries that have multiplier effects?
Dunlop came to Ikeja in 1962 with hopes to play a major role in the industrial destination of Nigeria which was wisely planned by Nigerian nationalists in politics, the civil service and the organised private sector. The academia was not left out. Everybody worked for a self-sufficient Nigeria that would be the envy of the black man because of its many human, natural and mineral endowments. Nigeria proved to have some of the fastest learners in the history of industrial development. The performance of Volkswagen of Nigeria in three years of its inception surpassed that of Brazil in 10 years. It was the same story in all the other industries that have now collapsed because of poor and visionless leadership characterised by the Second Republic. Things have never been the same since then. But with a man of vision and political will at the top, Nigeria can rewrite its history positively within a year because it has all the endowments needed for greatness.
Now, it is a show of vainglory in a journey destined to end in economic and political calamity because the people are not part of the calculations of governance.
Each man is the architect of his own fortune. We started brilliantly because we had positive dreamers who saw this nation favourably on the global scope. They had self-pride and felt they were in competition with others and so should spare no leisure to catch up with the developed countries. The industries Ahmadu Bello left behind in the North and to which Audu Bako, Abba Kyari and Joseph D. Gomwalk added more were positive proofs of their resourcefulness. What Obafemi Awolowo left in the West, to which Dennis Osadebay, Sam Ogbemudia and Lateef Jakande added their quotas, are there for all to see though now vandalised. Was Michael Okpara a Nigerian when he was industrialising the East and even thinking of a cattle ranch of world-class stature in Obudu? This is the difference between then and now.
When the Midwest Region was created in 1963, Osadebay and his colleagues forgot about building palaces. Permanent secretaries squatted in prefabricated buildings as offices. But under two years, they had established the Asaba Textile Mills, Ukpilla Cement and Ughelli Glass that offered jobs to thousands of people. And the multiplier effects were positive because they also created entrepreneurs.
Where a government wastes money refurbishing airports and other white elephants instead of reviving and expanding it's industrial base, it is consigned to the dustbin of history. Edo and Delta States governors should replace Dunlop with thriving tyre factory to be based probably in Sapele. Their attention should shift from oil to rubber and timber. The plantations and reserves must be resuscitated. Rivers and Cross Rivers States governments should revive Michelin tyres. Rivers has a lot of gas that it could now independently pipe to supply industries in Rivers and adjoining states to regain vitality. The same applies to Edo and Delta States.
