Artisans and sellers of traditional fabrics are complaining about the fierce competition from counterfeit fabrics, mainly Chinese, as shown in this AFP report from the Balogun market in Lagos.
Despite the rain sweeping through the aisles of the Balogun market in Lagos, Nigeria's economic capital, Ajoke takes her time choosing the Adire fabric she wants to gift to one of her friends. This popular indigo-dyed textile is emblematic of the Yoruba culture, one of the main ethnic groups in the country. To make her choice, the 21-year-old woman runs her fingers over various brightly colored fabrics to distinguish between traditional Nigerian cotton fabrics and counterfeit polyester ones made in China.
"It's not expensive," Ajoke says, brandishing a Chinese fabric with purple patterns bought for 3,300 nairas (about 2.30 euros), which is half the price of a local fabric. Chinese counterfeit Adire fabrics are appreciated by Nigerian consumers but greatly penalize the Yoruba textile industry in Nigeria.
Eighty kilometers from Lagos, Somodale Akomo Amosa, 86, who has been the president of the great Adire market in Abeokuta in the southwest of the country for 22 years, explains that she has witnessed, powerless, the arrival of Chinese competition "about ten years ago."
"Her income has decreased over the years. She has only sold five fabrics in the past ten days," one of her daughters confides.
Abeokuta, nicknamed the "capital of Adire," is home to nearly 2,000 merchants and producers, according to government data.
To create Adire fabrics, Yoruba producers use the "Tie and Dye" technique. This method involves tying and folding the fabric by hand before dyeing it to create gradients of colors and shapes, explains Tunde M. Akinwumi, a retired professor of African textile design and author of a book on Adire.
Despite the difficulties, Somodale Akomo Amosa refuses to see Nigerian Adire producers use machines to reduce production costs, and therefore the sale price, of their fabrics as the Chinese do.
This "would harm the tradition and originality of the products," says one of the few Adire merchants who has not succumbed to the Chinese temptation.
In addition to Chinese competition, she laments the economic crisis shaking the country, which she says prevents people from having enough money to buy traditional Adire fabrics.
This crisis, one of the worst in years in Nigeria, has been exacerbated by the economic reforms of Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, who has been in power for a year, which have increased the cost of living.
Other merchants, like Christiana Morenikeji Ilesanmi, feel they have no choice.
"We feel bad, but it would be worse if other people sold them, and not us," confesses this 56-year-old woman who gets her supplies from wholesalers in the megacity of Lagos.
"Everyone buys" Adire, "people with modest incomes as well as those with higher incomes," she adds, claiming to sell more Chinese imitations than traditional Nigerian fabrics.
Visitors are also becoming less frequent in placing orders directly at the main Adire production center in Abeokuta, located a few minutes walk from the market, says Mrs. Ogunyinka, a 55-year-old Adire producer.
"In the past, many people came here to order dresses for weddings or big occasions, but that's no longer the case," she laments.
To try to help the city's textile industry, the Nigerian presidency announced last March the allocation of 200 stores to 400 merchants at reduced rates in the great Adire market in Abeokuta, as part of a national business aid project.
Last year, Olusegun Obasanjo, former head of state of Nigeria from 1976 to 1979, and then from 1999 to 2007, called on authorities to end the importation of counterfeit Chinese Adire into Nigeria. But nothing has changed since.
In 2020, the Nigerian federal government and the Ogun State government also launched a website allowing merchants to sell their "original and high-end" Adire throughout the country as well as internationally.
"Adire production is a family heritage for us, others have come to learn it from us, it's our craft, it's my craft," defends Somodale Akomo Amosa, who wishes that her descendants can produce and sell Adire fabrics for as long as possible.
