Two men in grey jumpsuits brush glue onto rubber soles, while
factory machines whir in the background. Elsewhere, women perched behind
industrial sewing machines attach leather swatches to sturdy-looking
men’s shoes.
The production line could be anywhere in
the world. But Bertram Dozie, the chief executive of the newly opened
Bata Nigeria shoes plant, hopes this Abuja facility heralds a
renaissance for Nigerian-made shoes.
The factory, which opened in late 2019, can produce more than 500,000 shoes annually. It employs roughly 120 people.
Bata Nigeria is a franchise tied to Bata, a historic shoe company based in Switzerland, and present in 70 countries.
The Nigeria franchise has stores in the capital, Abuja, the southwestern megacity Lagos and southern oil city Port Harcourt.
Bata
Nigeria also sells shoes directly to Nigerian schools, for pupils as
part of their uniform, and stocks other stores in the country.
Nigeria’s government hopes companies like Bata can spur the
local manufacturing sector, create jobs and reduce Africa’s biggest
economy’s reliance on oil sales.
It has tried to
stimulate this with its long-running “Made in Nigeria” agenda, which
included placing import restrictions on shoes in 2007.
The
shift to locally-made goods is slowly taking effect. In 2010 Nigeria
imported $180 million worth of footwear. By 2018 this figure had fallen
to $100 million, mostly from China.
Dozie, surrounded
by shoes in one of the company’s showrooms, described the market
opportunities for locally-made mass-produced shoes in Africa’s most
populous nation of 200 million people as “glaring”.
Memories
Bata,
once a household name in Nigeria, closed its factory in the country
around 20 years ago. Brand recognition has helped its return.
It
sells everything from strappy heels and protective work boots for
adults to black leather school shoes. Prices range from 34,000 naira
($111) for leather boots to just under 6,000 naira for plain casual
shoes for children.
Dozie, 39, remembers wearing the shoes as a child as part of his school uniform.
Bata
was founded 126 years ago in what is now the Czech Republic. A local
company began marketing Bata in Nigeria in the 1930s, and manufacturing
the shoes in the west African country in the 1960s. Reuters archive
footage from 1971 shows a Polish delegation touring a thriving Bata shoe
plant in Lagos.
Nigerian manufacturing still faces
serious disadvantages due to frequent power outages, poor-quality roads
and jam-packed ports that push up the cost of raw material imports.
The absence of reliable supply chains of rubber can also pose problems.
But Dozie is not alone in hoping that the “Made in Nigeria” label will become a source of pride for consumers.
Tokunbo Onagoruwa, chief executive of Lagos-based shoemaker City Cobbler also said attitudes have shifted.
“When
I started I wasn’t putting my label on the shoes. I didn’t want people
to know they were made in Nigeria,” Onagoruwa said, adding “now people
wear ‘Made in Nigeria’ with all pride.”
It helps, she added, that a good quality locally-made shoe costs around £35 ($45), compared with £150 for a high-quality import.
Dozie said, “Our citizens are working for themselves and producing these shoes, so people enjoy that story.”
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