… as plan for Adire village intensifies
Oba Adedotun Gbadebo, Alake of Egbaland in Ogun State, has reaffirmed his commitment to preserving and promoting indigenous culture by injecting N5 million worth of cotton fabrics into the mechanised production of adire, the iconic Yoruba tie-and-dye textile.
The paramount ruler invested in the production of 100 percent cotton fabrics of 1,000 meters as a pilot for Adire producers to ease and remove the wait for Aba or imported fabrics.
A spokesperson for the ‘Kabiyesi’ told BusinessDay that this strategic investment is aimed at empowering local artisans in Ogun State and the southwest in general, enhancing production capacity, and positioning adire as a globally competitive cultural product.
Olajumoke Familoni, a professor of entrepreneurship and president of ICLED Business School, the coordinating organisation for this project for Alake, explained that the infiltration of Chinese adire and the lack of base fabrics in the market at affordable prices led to this intervention.
Familoni, who in the 1990s was into apparel designing and manufacturing in the US, using adire, emphasised that the adire producers in the state and environs will benefit as they can now get cotton fabrics for turing and dyeing without going as far as Aba, in Abia State, or relying on imported fabrics.
“With this investment, 100 percent cotton fabric tested for dyeing can be obtained locally. It took me taking various cotton fabrics back and forth to Abeokuta to test them in the ‘ARO’ dye.
“This is going to reposition employment and adire production in Nigeria because the long-standing issue of lack of material except imported ones is resolved now. Any adire producer can now place an order at the palace and get their fabrics,” she said.
In addition, the renowned entrepreneur and academic emphasised that unemployed people can pull resources together and buy materials and dye, and sell.
According to the Egba, Ogun State-born woman, reiterated that no one in Abeokuta should be talking about ‘ebi npa wa’, we are hungry, because they should be entrepreneurial.
“We will train them also on how to market their products and have some enterprise going,” she noted.
Familoni further disclosed that there is a plan ongoing for the establishment of an ‘Adire Village’ where the history of adire and concomitant things about the textile from production to sale will be located for tourism as well.
This, she said, is a potential business growth for the country and everyone interested in adire commercial, especially in Ogun State.
This initiative is poised to significantly impact Nigeria’s creative economy,” she said.
The adire business is experiencing a revival, driven by both cultural appreciation and the rise of sustainable fashion. The business is experiencing a resurgence in popularity, with growing demand both locally and internationally.
With the timely intervention of the Alake of Egbaland, the adire business is poised to create opportunities for entrepreneurs in manufacturing, retail, wholesale, and training in Ogun State and Nigeria as a whole.
Some of the challenges the business had faced include mass production and competition from machine-printed imitations.
Besides, there are the challenges of counterfeit adire fabrics from other countries flooding the market, impacting sales of authentic, handmade adire.
