The First Vice President of the Chartered Institute of Professional Printers of Nigeria, Sir John Onuegbulem has called on stakeholders in the entire value chain of printing in Nigeria to join hands with the Institute to restructure the industry in order to ensure printing becomes profitable again and print jobs remain in Nigeria
According to him, most stakeholders who have benefitted from the industry have refused to join in the restructuring process of getting the industry to work again.
He stressed that the COVID-19 pandemic affected the generality of the printing business aside from the signage and packaging sectors which had their boom during the pandemic but pointed at the commercial printers as the worst hit by the pandemic.
“For commercial printers, the business became very unprofitable with the price of paper almost at 100 percent increase. The paper business is a worldwide cartel, the cartels are the ones that fund the mills, unfortunately for Nigeria, we have everything imported and that is the greatest problem with paper”. He said
Onuegbulem stated that COVID-19 has its effect on the economy; printing has a contribution to the country’s GDP. The commercial printers are yet to pick up because there are still restrictions on physical events.
He emphasized that the current CIPPON Council has done better compared to the previous council, “Under my supervision, we have an identified office with training facilities. Printers in Nigeria know that there is an Institute that looks after the activities of printers. There is awareness!” He stated
Furthermore, he emphasized on the need for Nigeria print jobs to remain in Nigeria which according to him, the Institute has done a lot of campaigns and use the medium to call on other stakeholders to join in the campaign. “For CIPPON to function properly, stakeholders must be ready to make things work, if you ask around how many printers are licensed by CIPPON, very few. It is easy to criticize the executives but these guys need money to work, without money, it is impossible to restructure the industry to be profitable for every one of us. The Institute generates money through the subscription of members and sometimes donations. Most practitioners who want to see positive changes in the industry are yet registered members of the Institute and for some of the registered ones, they are not consistent with their dues and membership renewals”. Onuegbulem stated
