Coleman boss George Onafowokan says manufacturing is the missing link in Nigeria's $1 trillion economy push

George Onafowokan, managing director of Coleman Technical Industries Limited, Nigeria's largest indigenous manufacturer of electrical and telecommunications cables, has a blunt diagnosis for why Nigeria's $1 trillion economy target remains out of reach: the country is still exporting raw materials when it should be processing them, borrowing at commercial rates when manufacturers need patient capital, and paying some of the highest energy costs on the continent while competitors pay a fraction as much.

Onafowokan described manufacturing as the "missing link" in Nigeria's quest to achieve President Bola Tinubu's $1 trillion economy target by 2030, warning that the goal would remain difficult without aggressive government support for local manufacturing, value addition, affordable financing and reliable power.

Speaking on government's economic agenda, Onafowokan said projections indicate Nigeria could reach $700 billion to $800 billion in GDP by 2030 under current trends. Hitting $1 trillion, he said, would require annual growth above 10%, a pace that demands more than macroeconomic stabilization alone.

His argument is structural. Agriculture, he said, cannot drive economic transformation without a manufacturing sector capable of converting raw materials into finished products. The example he reached for is one Coleman knows intimately: cocoa. Nigeria grows it.

Other countries process it and capture the value. The same dynamic plays out in palm products and shea butter, where a $140 million investment in cocoa processing and new policies requiring local shea processing before export have begun to shift the equation.

Nigeria's non-oil exports have risen from 17% to approximately 23% of the total, a gain Onafowokan attributed to deliberate fiscal policies promoting domestic manufacturing.

"You cannot separate manufacturing from agriculture," he said. "We don't want to remain exporters of raw materials. Processing agricultural produce such as cocoa, palm products and shea butter adds value, creates employment and strengthens the economy."

On financing, Onafowokan commended the Central Bank of Nigeria for stabilizing the foreign exchange market and moderating inflation, saying the reforms have improved business planning.

But he was pointed in his criticism of what comes next. Coleman has spent more than $20 million building its own gas-fired electricity supply, capital that Onafowokan said would otherwise have gone into machinery and additional jobs.

The company still pays as much as $8.70 per thousand standard cubic feet of gas after making that investment, a rate he described as a policy failure requiring urgent attention.

Power accounts for nearly 40% of manufacturers' production costs in Nigeria, by Onafowokan's estimate. He urged the federal government to reduce gas prices for manufacturers, arguing that cheaper energy would make Nigerian industries more competitive and accelerate growth.

On the Bank of Industry, he was equally direct. The institution, he said, is a development finance bank that should be offering affordable long-term capital, not loans priced at commercial rates. "You cannot borrow at commercial interest rates above 20% and expect industries to expand," he said.

Onafowokan's broader call was for the government to deliberately nurture indigenous billion-dollar companies across manufacturing, agriculture and mining, arguing that foreign investors alone cannot drive Nigeria's transformation. "No foreigner can grow Nigeria for us. Nigerians must grow Nigeria."

Coleman Technical Industries was founded in 1975 by Solomon Kayode Onafowokan, the Asiwaju of Remoland, who remains chairman. George Onafowokan joined the business in 2002 after a career in the United Kingdom and led the restructuring that transformed it into Nigeria's largest indigenous cable manufacturer, with assets growing from N50 million in 2002 to over N400 billion by the end of 2024.