Story highlights

Nigeria plans to open the first pencil plant in West Africa in 2018
Government officials believe this will create at least 400,000 jobs
Pencils are seen as a way to kickstart a manufacturing industry

(CNN)With the value of oil and the Naira currency in decline, Nigeria is turning to old-fashioned pencils to provide relief.

The Minister of Science and Technology, Ogbonnaya Onu, recently announced that the first pencil plant in West Africa would start production in 2018.

"We have all the things to produce a pencil, which is used by a large number of people from our young pupils to engineers," Onu told Nigerian newspaper The Daily Trust.

"The private sector will come in to do the production and we will see the benefits. When production of pencils begins, Nigerians will be amazed at the multiplier effects. It will create a minimum of 400,000 jobs."

The Minister explained that pencils use raw materials that Nigeria possesses in abundance, such as wood, graphite, and rubber. All pencils are currently imported, which has become prohibitively expensive as the Naira struggles.

Reviving industry

It is hoped that pencil production can help to revive the manufacturing sector, which has declined since the oil boom of the 1970s.

The textile industry alone employed around 350,000 people in the 1980s, a figure that has fallen to 25,000 today. The total manufacturing sector employed 18% of the workforce in 1982, but under 12% today.

The government has adopted former President Goodluck Jonathan's Nigeria Industrial Revolution Plan (NIRP) to scale up industrial production. Onu claims that pencils will be the first of 1,000 products that could now be manufactured domestically, with six-cylinder engines next on the list.

Pencils can be a logical first step in developing industrial capacity, believes Professor of Economics Stephen Onyeiwu of Allegheny College.

"Pencils use simple, mature technology and raw materials that can be sourced domestically," says Onyeiwu. "The size of the market is huge, and we could export to other African countries."

The Professor believes that success with pencils could pave the way for more sophisticated production. Economic analysts Mckinsey predict Nigerian manufacturing has the potential to deliver output of $144 billion a year by 2030, up from $35 billion in 2013.

Faith gap

However, Onyeiwu is skeptical of state-led industrial enterprise, citing the past failure of fertilizer and cement initiatives, and stresses the need for private sector leadership.

"The history of the government's involvement in the industrial sector has been disappointing," he says. "The government's role should be to facilitate...they should introduce policies to attract private investors (such as) to bring down interest rates."


Reaction to the pencil project has been largely negative, with many social media users noting the contrast with neighboring Uganda's launch of a solar-powered bus.

One scathing article by Nigerian journalist Emmanuel Uchenna Ugwu attacked the scheme as a "dubious joke."

"It is a pity that Nigeria is fantasizing about the made-in-Nigeria pencil in this age," the author wrote. "That the government of Nigeria is projecting the coming pencil as a sort of technological revolution shows that Nigeria has recorded satisfactory success only in insulting and betraying its potential." http://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/10/africa/nigeria-pencil-production-ogbonnaya/index.html

Good news

lalasticlala Mynd44 ur help pls

Overnight pencil factory setup. This government has always been the joker of all time.

It's not a bad idea as long as it creates jobs, brings revenue and saves our forex.

very foolish government for foolish people

Tinubutoto:
very foolish government for foolish people

What is foolish about this idea?

Not this pencil bullshit again

Cluelessness taken to a whole new level

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Nigeria is a joke. Just Negodu!

Enough talk already...get down to actions..

In 2018?

Na nuclear power plant ni

it about time..the youth get something to do..enough of social media..it beginning to ruin lives

mikewonder:
The government has adopted former President Goodluck Jonathan's Nigeria Industrial Revolution Plan (NIRP) to scale up industrial production.

yet they said he was clueless...this administration keeps showing us how cluelessly clueless they are...imaging how bad it has become that we have to go back to pencils when Uganda is talking about solar powered bus...tufiakwa

i am not against the manufacturing of pencils and all that but do we really need 400,000 people to manufacture pencils?
That sounds unrealistic and looks like another one of the Buhari's body odour promises that would soon be denied.

Before you know, they say, "we only promised to employ 100 workers... can't you see that oil prices are low"?

Lolz....Sai baba Buhari.!!!
APC--All Promises Cancelled.

Let me celebrate and fill happy and hopeful of job before Pmb or mr. Lai refute it.

Good development. Let us learn to patronise all Nigerian Goods and Promote our Manufacturing Industries.

PMB.........

2018,

not a bad idea. Job na job

anything that will create employment is welcomed as long as it'll be sustained

Common pencil to the rescue.

Sigh

People are ridiculing this idea, but the countries producing pencils are they not better off than us today?

Where do you expect a non-export to start from? We should start producing and exporting fighter jets? With sand abi?

Common toothpick, we import. And the countries producing these toothpicks keep cashing out on us.

I believe it is a good start, Rome was not built in a day.

Government TO, Nigeria TO and every other TO TO....... #wearetiredofTOTO #BABAdosth

Pity that our government boast of producing pencil in this jet age.

They will continue to talk about this pencil project until 2019.
Then they will mobilize a few machines and flash it all over the TV for election campaign.

shameseun:
Overnight pencil factory setup. This government has always been the joker of all time.

Go to PRODA, Enugu, the pencil factory has been in existence since 2011... Just dat wasteful Jonathan government couldn't make it work.

Get facts before u type nonsense

Pencil

NIRP, GEJ legacy, build on it and see how this country soars.He said he's ready to work in any capacity, if consulted, call this man and save this country.

Is it 400 or 400,000 jobs ....na pencil ooo...how much is pencil??..well don't belief everything you read....