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After Dunlop Nigeria Plc and GlaxoWellcome wound up their manufacturing operations in Nigeria, recently, citing disabling factors in the business environment, any illusions about resiliency of this country's industrial sector were dispelled.

In alarm, Nigerians have watched the unremitting shrinkage of industry as multinationals shut down their production operations and depart our shores, some relocating to neighbouring countries like Ghana and Benin Republic. At the same time, our major seaports are witnessing extreme congestion, as numerous vessels, laden with goods that could have been manufactured here, cannot berth for evacuation of their cargoes.

Notable among the many manufacturing firms that have left Nigeria in the past few years are Michelin, Pfizer, Hoescht and Aventis. At the moment, reports indicate that two other major business organisations Unilever and PZ may be considering winding up their manufacturing bases here. The sprawling Eldorado conglomerate in Lagos is one of several large indigenous firms that have closed shop. In the extractive sector, Willbros International is notable among oil service firms that have quit. In the iron and steel sub-sector, the shutdowns are equalled only perhaps by the trend in the textile industry, where virtually all major firms have ceased to be operational.

Nigerians alarmed by the trend are equally appalled by the apparent inaction of Government in the face of the imminent collapse of the industrial sector. The inclement business environment, especially since the mid-1990s, has been a recurring theme of countless seminars, workshops and conferences within and outside the country. At every opportunity, the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) and other stakeholders have endeavoured to enumerate the specific problems confronting the real sector and the required remedies and strategies. The issues are straightforward enough for any government with a sense of mission to deal with and achieve meaningful results.

In the collapse of the textile industry, the major contributory factors were energy, specifically electricity supply, and the incidence of dumping. The same factors account for the shutdown of individual manufacturing firms like Michelin and Dunlop, among others, and the threat confronting the few business organisations that have managed to remain afloat.

To all business firms, however, it is a lot else more than energy and dumping. The poor transportation system poses its own difficulties and economic costs, especially in regard to movement of goods and raw materials, given the antiquated railway system that has been non-functional for decades, and the potholed, sometimes miry stretches of highways. Oftentimes, warehouses are bulging at the seams as demand for manufactured goods remains low because of the abysmally low disposable incomes of the vast majority of citizens. Then, there are the issues of multiple taxation, corruption in State bureaucracy and insecurity of lives and property around the country.

Along with industry, the people of this country have been expectant that Government would rise to these challenges with a firm determination to protect the national economy from imminent collapse. Electricity supply, which is the most serious challenge to industry and enterprise, generally, ought not to be such a daunting problem as President Umaru Yar'Adua's Administration, in its helplessness, seems to suggest. The stupendous revenues from crude oil, from 2000 to 2008, with as much as US$55 billion raked in by government in 2007 alone, were adequate for a purposeful government to effectively tackle the problems of power supply. Massive corruption of top government functionaries in the regime of ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo made a whopping sum of US$16 billion, purportedly invested in electricity projects, to be wasted without addition of even 1,000 mega watts (MW) to the national grid.

As we watch neighbouring West African countries become the 'preferred destination'of multinationals and major industrial firms quitting our shores, we want Government to snap out of its stupor and act to save this country. That The Presidency, Federal Ministries and agencies, as well as the National Assembly, have voted N2 billion for maintenance and fuelling of power generating sets in this year's budget does not encourage any optimism that we can expect anything reasonable from the Yar'Adua Administration. We are calling for a re-orientation and a rededication of Government to the task of national redemption. We want concrete action on the issues plaguing industry