By Aliyu Baba Mohammed
The Ikara Food Processing Company could have transformed Agalawa, Gimbawa, Jibwis, Kamayi, Kan Kona, Malikanci, Tashar Dauda, among other villages, but instead, it stands empty while the region burns
The Ikara Food Processing Company sits like a broken promise in Kaduna State. Farmers from many surrounding villages can see it from their fields. Young men in all the aforementioned communities walk past its gates every day, hoping for its reopening that doesn’t seem happening as expected. Elderly persons in these villages remember when they sold tomatoes, peppers, and other food items to the company before it collapsed.
During his administration, former Governor Nasir El-Rufa’i started bringing the company back to life. The property was refenced, the land was expanded, and electricity was connected. Hope returned to villages as farmers started imagining markets for their crops again. Unemployed youth started dreaming of paychecks and parents started planning their children’s school fees and money for family upkeep.
Then everything stopped, the machines were never repaired and new equipment never arrived. When Senator Uba Sani’s administration took over, the resuscitation work died completely. Today, the company stands silent as no worker is on sight, and the villages around it remain trapped in false hope.
What Ikara food processing company meant to its people
Food Processing Company was never just a factory for communities around it, It was the difference between survival and prosperity. When the company was functioning, local farmers had guaranteed buyers for their produce. They didn’t have to worry about tomatoes rotting in baskets or peppers going to waste. They knew exactly where to take their harvest and exactly how much they would earn.
The company also meant jobs; hundreds of people from surrounding villages worked there; on the processing lines, in the warehouses, as drivers, as security guards, as cleaners. Every salary fed a family. Every family spends money in local markets. Every market transaction kept the village economy alive.
Beyond direct employment, Ikara Food Processing Company created what economists call a multiplier effect. Food sellers near the factory gate made money, motorcycle riders (popularly known as Okada riders) transported workers/other business owners and small shops sold goods to employees.
When Dawn Herald spoke with neighbouring villagers, one thing became clear: the company’s closure didn’t just take away jobs, it took away dignity, purpose, and hope. Young men who should have been earning salaries/wages and building families instead sit idle, vulnerable to any group promising quick money, whether through crime or violence.
Some residents claimed that El-Rufa’i had sold the company to himself during his administration, which would explain why he was resuscitating it for private business rather than public goods. However, this claim could not be verified at the time of writing this report.
The pattern: Northern Nigeria’s industrial graveyard
Ikara’s story would be tragic enough on its own, but it is not unique. Across Northern Nigeria, the same story has repeated itself hundreds of times over the past four decades. Every collapsed factory looks different, but the consequences are always the same: joblessness, poverty, frustration, and eventually violence.
In Kaduna State alone, the industrial carnage is staggering. Kaduna Textile Limited, which once employed thousands, closed in the early 2000s, Arewa Textiles is moribund, Nortex, Finetex Nigeria Limited, and Supertex all shut down. United Nigerian Textiles Limited wound down operations, briefly tried to revive on a smaller scale, then collapsed again. Each closure meant thousands of workers suddenly had no income and no future in legitimate employment.
According to available information from certain sources such as trustradio.com, Kano State, the ancient commercial capital of the North, suffered even worse. Between 2000 and 2024, Kano recorded a significant number of company closures in Northern Nigeria. Gaskiya Textile Mills collapsed, Bagauda Textile shut down, and the African Textile Manufacturer went bankrupt. The city that should have been leading the region’s economy instead became a monument to failed dreams.
Studies from the ResearchGate titled “The Rise and Collapse of Zamfara Textile Industries” and “Banditry and the complicity of authorities in Zamfara State,” indicate that in Zamfara State, now infamous as the epicenter of banditry and kidnapping, the connection between industrial collapse and insecurity is impossible to ignore. Zamfara Textile Industries Limited collapsed, Gusau Oil Mills became defunct, the Gusau industrial zone, which should have been creating thousands of jobs, turned into another collection of abandoned buildings. When legitimate work disappeared, is it any surprise that some young men picked up guns instead?
According to the Premium Times, Kwara State lost the Nigeria Paper Mill in Jebba and the Nigeria Sugar Company at Bacita. In the same vein, Gombe State saw the British Cotton Ginnery and BATA Shoes Company close their doors. In Bauchi, the Steyr tractor manufacturing plant, which could have revolutionized agriculture across the North, is now just a memory.
Even states like Sokoto and Kebbi, far from the headlines, lost multiple industries. Everywhere you look across the North, the pattern is the same: factories close, jobs disappear, young people become desperate, and violence fills the vacuum.
Why Did They All Fall?
The reasons are well-documented but painful to accept as they are majorly attributed to the poor electricity supply and high costs in Nigeria that make manufacturing nearly impossible. When companies have to run expensive diesel generators 24 hours a day just to keep the machines running and lights on, they can’t compete with cheaper imported goods produced by countries with stable power supply.
The business environment became increasingly hostile. Poor roads make transportation expensive, multiple taxes from different government levels (like the current situation) squeeze profits. Lack of government protection allows foreign products to flood Nigerian markets and destroy local manufacturers.
From the website of SimplVest, between the 1980s and 2020s, hundreds of textile factories, food processing plants, tanneries, ceramics manufacturers, and other industries across Northern Nigeria simply gave up and closed. The region that once had a thriving industrial base became a wasteland of rusted machinery and empty warehouses.
The deadly consequence: From factory workers to bandits
Here is the part that should terrify every Nigerian. When industries collapse, they don’t just take away jobs, they create a generation of young people with no legitimate options. For instance, think about a 22-year-old man in a village near Ikara. His father worked at the food processing company and earned enough to send him to secondary school, but when the company closed, his father lost his job. This young man finished secondary school but there’s no money to go to a tertiary institution and nowhere to work. His father can’t help him anymore, and his mother stops selling food because there are no factory workers to buy from her.
What does this young man do? He watches his mates in the city posting pictures on social media, he sees politicians driving expensive cars, and he feels the frustration building inside him every day. Then someone approaches him with an offer: join us, carry a gun, raid some villages, and you will have more money than your father ever made at the factory.
Multiply this story by the thousands, and you understand Northern Nigeria’s security crisis. The bandits terrorizing Zamfara, Kaduna, Katsina, Niger, and other states are not necessarily foreigners. They are our sons, our brothers, our neighbours who had no other options when the factories closed. We are not justifying their criminal activities, no! However, there is a dire need to think of the cause of a disease while trying to find a treatment.
Research consistently shows that states with the economic disadvantage or highest industrial collapse have the worst security situations. This is not a coincidence, it is cause and effect. When you take away people’s ability to earn legitimate income, some will find illegitimate ways to survive.
The root cause of unrest and insecurity in Northern Nigeria today is not religion, ethnicity, though (maybe) a bit of politics. But it is more of the systematic destruction of the industries that once gave young people purpose, income, and dignity. Every closed factory is a potential recruitment center for criminal gangs.
Conclusion
Northern Nigeria cannot continue on this unfortunate path. The region is sitting on a demographic time bomb. Youth constitute the largest segment of the population, and most of them have nothing productive to do. If this doesn’t change soon, the security situation will only get worse.
First, state governments must finish what they started. The Ikara Food Processing Company is 60-70 percent of the way to reopening. The fence is there, the land is expanded and electricity is connected. All that is missing is repairing the machines or buying new ones. This is not rocket science; it is a decision that Governor Uba Sani’s administration needs to make today, not tomorrow.
When Ikara reopens, farmers in surrounding villages will have guaranteed markets again, hundreds of young people will have jobs again, and local economies will start moving again. Most importantly, young men will have an alternative to crime and violence.
Second, the federal government must create an environment where industries can actually survive. Fix the power problem permanently in this country, because without stable electricity, no manufacturing company can compete. Reduce the cost of doing business, protect local manufacturers from unfair foreign competition that dumps cheap products and destroys Nigerian jobs.
Third, transparency is essential. If there are allegations about who owns which company or who benefits from government “resuscitation” efforts, the truth must come out. Nigerians have the right to know whether their government is reviving industries for public benefit or private profit.
Fourth, link security spending to industrial development. Northern states spend billions on security operations, buying vehicles and in some cases weapons to fight bandits. But what if even half that money went into reopening factories? You would be attacking insecurity at its root by giving young people legitimate work instead of just chasing them with guns.
Finally, remember this simple truth: every reopened factory is a step toward peace. Every young person with a steady job is one less potential recruit for criminal gangs. Every village with economic activity is harder for bandits to penetrate.
The choice before us is clear. We can continue letting industries like Ikara Food Processing Company rot while we complain about insecurity. Or we can revive these industries, put people back to work, and watch security improve naturally.
Villages like Agalawa, Gimbawa, Jibwis, Kamayi, Kan Kona, Malikanci, Tashar Dauda, among others are waiting. Young men and women across the North are waiting. The question is whether our leaders will act before it is too late.
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