Every year, the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (M.A.N.) releases figures that read like obituaries for the nation’s industrial spirit. In 2023, MAN reported that 767 manufacturing firms shut down, while 335 others became distressed due to multidimensional challenges ranging from forex volatility to infrastructure decay. In 2024, the association announced that over 300 manufacturing companies closed down due to harsh economic conditions.
Wait for this: M.A.N. has not disclosed, with equal clarity, how many new factories began operations in either 2023 or 2024. Its public communications lean heavily toward closures and operational challenges—rarely spotlighting fresh investments or openings.
This silence is not benign. It is a betrayal of mandate.
M.A.N., an institution meant to be the torchbearer of industrial progress, has instead become the pallbearer of collapse—repeating tales of doom with the solemnity of a funeral choir, while ignoring the symphony of rebirth playing across the land.
Let us step back from the politics of apocalypse and beam the societal lens on positivity.
Across sectors, hope is rising. Since mid-2023, Nigeria has witnessed a surge in manufacturing activity that defies the dominant narrative. Foreign direct investment in manufacturing rose by 67%, from $948 million in 2022 to $1.59 billion in 2023, driven by consumer goods, renewable energy, and advanced processing technologies. Two Chinese-backed lithium plants—worth $600 million and $200 million respectively—are set to begin operations in 2025. A $20 million snack plant by PepsiCo and DP World opened in Lagos. A $2 billion garment factory in Ogun State is underway, poised to become Africa’s largest, with capacity for 4.4 million garments per day and up to 150,000 jobs. A 100-ton/day shea nut plant, the largest in Africa, launched in Niger State. A solar module assembly plant, a biochar facility, and a steel coil factory are all in motion.
These are not dreams. They are facts. They are Nigeria.
And yet, the institutions tasked with chronicling this renaissance have ceded the narrative to excavators of doom. The people have suffered enough. They deserve to hear of progress, of growth, of opportunity. They deserve to know that the soil still yields, the factories still hum, and the nation still rises.
How many bad news stories can a man endure before losing his mind?
Psychologically, the answer is sobering. Studies show that constant exposure to negative news can lead to anxiety, depression, and hopelessness. The brain’s stress response floods with cortisol, rewiring neural pathways toward despair. Philosophically, despair is the death of imagination. Scientifically, it is the erosion of resilience. When people give up hope, a nation is not just weakened—it is, as the French say, céfini.
And to those who hunt for bad news about Nigeria as if it were a gourmet feast—chewing on every misfortune with relish—you might as well be killing your neurons in installments. The human brain was not designed to metabolize despair as a daily diet. It needs hope to function, to imagine, to rebuild.
Yet some institutions have inadvertently become killjoys of progress. When Nigeria’s GDP grows, when forex reserves rise, when insurgents are pushed back, they rush to explain it away. But when a business folds—regardless of whether it was mismanaged or misaligned—they trumpet it as proof of national failure.
Let us be clear: businesses close everywhere. In Q3 2024, official data recorded 65,180 company closures in the UK across all sectors, with manufacturing among the hardest hit. Among the companies that announced factory closures in the UK in 2023–2024 were Tata Steel, Dyson, and Hotpoint. I did not hear Britons gloating that “Britain happened to them.”
In the United States, over 45,000 manufacturing firms disappeared between 2002 and 2022, with significant closures continuing through the pandemic. In 2023 and 2024, major U.S. manufacturers like Stanley Black & Decker, International Paper, and Energizer announced plant shutdowns, resulting in thousands of job losses. Yet new factories also opened, and manufacturing employment rebounded to 12.8 million by 2022, surpassing pre-COVID levels.
The trajectory of life is not static. There are births and there are deaths. That is not failure. That is reality.
So stop deriding the country. Stop saying “Nigeria happened to them” to every business that closes. Ironically, that refrain is a sophisticated exhibition of ignorance. Even if leadership failed, even if conditions were harsh, the story must be told in full—not just the fall, but the rise.
Nigeria is not a graveyard of ambition. It is a crucible of resilience.
Let us rewire for sustainable progress. Let us tell our story with facts, with balance, and with faith.
