Middle East & Africa | Protection racket

Muhammadu Buhari has big ambitions for Nigerian manufacturing

But his policies help only a few industrialists

They lost their shirts
|KANO

SUNLIGHT POURS onto yellowing cloth in the Gaskiya textile factory in Kano, northern Nigeria’s largest city, through gaping holes in its tin roof. Chickens in the carcass of a van pierce the silence. Before this textile mill closed in 2005, says Yau Muhammad, one of 4,000 former employees, it was among West Africa’s largest.

This article appeared in the Middle East & Africa section of the print edition under the headline “Protection racket”

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