Located about four kilome­ters from Abuja city centre, along the Abuja-Keffi Ex­pressway, the Kugbo Furniture Market at its booming best, is a beehive of activities.

Daily, buyers of fully made home and office furniture be­seeched the market for prod­ucts. Carpenters also are there for planks and woods for work­shops located within and outside the market. But all that is now in the past, as Nigeria’s current eco­nomic woes has taken its toll on the market.

A visit to the market revealed the grim reali­ty of how hard the economic re­cession has affected traders who sat idly waiting in vain for buyers to come in.

The once vibrant market was a mere shadow of what it was just a year and half ago and the trad­ers are not finding it easy.

Speaking to Webteam@Ipledge2nigeria, Prince Emeka Egwuekwe, the President of United Furniture and appointed chairman of the Kugbo Market, described busi­ness as very slow due to non-pa­tronage and high cost of raw ma­terials and products.

He said before now, most of them imported accessories to work but are no longer able to because the value of dollar has gone up.

He explained that though the main input for furniture mak­ing is good wood, other accesso­ries such as foams, nails, finish­ing, metals, and hand finishing touches need to be brought from abroad.

Without these, he said, it is im­possible to compete against im­ported furniture products.

“He said due to the challeng­es shops are closing down be­cause things are not happening they way it used to be. “We are in a government of ‘change’ before something becomes good, you must uproot, root and rebuild”, he added.

He explained that business downturn started immediately after the COVID pandemic and it is getting worse every day, “Nai­ra is going down every day, today dollar is N1,800, the business can­not be done without importation of accessories because they make furniture look foreign, Kugbo Market is known for manufactur­ing not like Wuse Market where foreign furniture are exhibited in show rooms for the wealthy in the country, for them to meet up with their expectations, acces­sories must be imported”.

Egwuekwe noted that “cash is not flowing, people can’t eat, and shops are closing. On Saturdays and other days you see diplomats, foreigners like Chinese compa­nies, and Nigerians running into the market and buying furniture, maybe for wedding, new house among others, we don’t rest but you can see me sitting down, waiting, doing nothing”.

He said prices of inputs have gone up considerably.

“The foam seller will say he im­ported the chemical he used in manufacturing, 2 inches foam was N15,500 but now is N40,000 which is 266 percent addition. A set of chair for N200,000 is now N 550,000 and nobody will buy, because when it was N200,000, they were complaining now, the production rate has reduced so they can manage the ones they have.

He said as a result of the harsh economy, he has reduced the number of his staffs from 10 to 4 in order to be able to pay salaries.

He also said that he is proud of Nigeri­an furniture, stressing that hav­ing seen furniture from all over the world, he found out that Ni­gerian furniture is the best.

“In the imported products, the makers use saw-dust but we use solid wood. So if their furniture will last for 10 years, ours will last for 50 years, the only problem we are having is the finishing.

“Nigeria has the best wood in Africa. Cameron, Zimbabwe and Nigeria have the best woods in the whole world. We source woods from Warri, Sapele, Ondo, Akure and foreigners come to Ni­geria to buy our wood”.

He commended the traders for always paying their taxes and rev­enue as when due in the past six­teen years and for being law abid­ing citizens.

He said traders in the mar­kets have always received praise from the local authorities, espe­cially the Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC).

Egwuekwe however noted that there are no infrastructure in the market such as electricity, toilet, good access road and water to show for their effort.

He said most of them have to buy diesel to power their gener­ators.

He said in Kugbo Furniture Market, you can get home, of­fice, hotel and hospital furniture which are of high quality.

Prince Egwuekwe asserted that the industry need more women than men, explaining that wom­en are dedicated, focused and in­dustrious most especially in sewing of leather.

On his part, Deacon Charles Anyanwu, the Chairman of Lib­erty Furniture Association said: “Furniture is a lucrative busi­ness and a product that every­body needs, that is why the busi­ness is a lucrative business.

“The challenge we have is that our people, most especially those in power, they don’t see the fur­niture, especially made in Nige­ria, to be perfect. That may be they use sub-standard materials but they use the best. The prob­lem is the finishing and the rea­son why the foreign furniture’s look perfect is because of the ma­chines use in manufacturing it, but the made in Nigeria furniture is more durable and perfect more than the imported furniture most especially when you get it from those who produce it well”.

He also said that if they can get support from government, he be­lieves that their product will be better than those of China and other countries.

He said they need financial support, land, workshops, offic­es and show rooms and encour­agement from the government.

“We don’t have fixed prices, it depends on the individual we are selling the product to, there are some bed 4-x-half made with MBF, we sell at the rate of N30, 000 or N35, 000. 6-x-6 depend­ing on the design sold for 170,000 to 175,000, some for N180,000, N185,000 to N1,180000, N2,000000 to N 3,000000,

The materials used, in manu­facturing the furniture, some are from Nigeria while others are imported like the MBF and they are very expensive and for trans­porting them the drivers chang­es them according to the number of wood they bought

Anyanwu appealed to the gov­ernment to provide a permanent place where Liberty Furniture As­sociation can relax and do their business without being harassed, saying that the company “is regis­tered under CAC, pay taxes and also pay AMAC, when they come to collect ground fee levy and that is how we pay to the government”.

He said the furniture makers need support from the govern­ment in obtaining loans from the banks, because they lack the collateral to guarantee the loans.

Members of the association, he said, sell beds, dining tables, chairs, tables and other furniture products, lamenting that most customers come to market ex­pecting them to sell the furni­ture less than the cost of produc­tion without considering if they are making profit or not.

Also speaking, Hyacinth Ibeh, the owner of Hyman Furniture Haven, explained that furniture making and selling is a business that brings in profits but it is cap­ital intensive.

Ibeh noted that when one lowers himself and learn from the grassroots, it uplifts the per­son because it needs a lot of hard work, stressing that only those who have the huge capital that can import furniture.

He stated that those who are not financially able to import have to learn how to make it lo­cally and “if God blesses you with an assistant you will be able to build up because he knows the foundation and he will go world­wide”.

Ibeh said is empowerment is needed in the system because there are a lot of people who have learnt the trade, but “what they need is empowerment. If they are empowered, there will be no reason to import foreign furni­ture because there is nothing that can’t be manufactured here, all we need are the machines to give us good finishing.

“I have travelled to China and there is nothing in their indus­tries that is extraordinary, that we cannot produce here, but they have the equipment to put it in the perfect condition.

“Here we have created a lot of employment for many people. There are a lot of sales girls and boys in the workshop, there are a lot of workers, those working and those learning”.

He encouraged people who want to learn that determina­tion is what is needed because “you won’t spend a lot of money. It is just agreement that is need­ed with the family, pay a token to meet the requirements of buying drinks and wine to create aware­ness within the environment that you have learnt the business and bless you. And to learn the trade at least five years is okay, but in three years a smart person can learn it.

“Any woman that is deter­mined that furniture will be her profession, nothing can stop her, there is no big deal because mod­ern equipment has made it easy, the most important thing is to know their measurements and how to fix it”, he added.