Aso-ofi, men-led traditional cloth business striving for survival amidst inflation

Aso-Oke is an age-old handicraft largely accompanied by huge profit; however, the recent skyrocketing in the cost of food and other items has warranted an unbearable grim on weavers of aso-ofi, as they bemoan their striving to meet their family’s needs with the weaving income.

He punctuates two puffy coughs while covering his mouth with one hand, using the other hand to hold a small wooden boat known as ‘oko’ in the Yoruba language. At the same time, his spinning hands do not stop embroidering beautiful designs on the spread fabric before him.

As old as he appears, Shafii Abdulkareem, a resident of Okelele Street in the Ilorin East local government area of Kwara State, has been in the line of weaving for a lifetime; his weaving skills exhibit speed and dexterity that leave no doubt of his years of experience as a master in the art.

The man in his mid-60s could be engrossed in conversation without missing passing the wooden boat. He explained that the key to handling the wooden boat with expertise requires a high level of artistry and balanced posture of the body.

In Yoruba language, aso means cloth, and ofi is the traditional wooden loom used to weave the cloth. Therefore, aso-ofi loosely translates as the hand-woven cloth from the wooden loom.

The process of weaving is hectic and time-consuming, from sorting the raw cotton to combing, spinning, and warping — all done manually.

For many households in Ilorin, the capital city of Kwara State, situated in North Central Nigeria, weaving aso-ofi is a booming handicraft that ensures food on tables in many households. As part of its enticing nature, aso-oke also holds historical significance as a symbol of wealth, prestige, and cultural identity, particularly among the Yoruba extraction.

However, in recent times, the economic reality in the country has inflicted heavy blows on aso-ofi weaving; the cost of food items, exacerbated by inflation, has triggered traders to wail adversely as their business gives less than the desired profit value.

Aso-oke weaving is not spared from the effects of inflation; weavers narrate the devastating, grim toll on their earnings as weavers.

“Before the removal of fuel subsidy, I used to collect 15 to 20 ipele (shawl) of Eleyan fabrics or more to weave,  and each shawl was ₦6,000, which was well managed and satisfactory for my household,” he said.

Sadly, the aftermath of the subsidy removal crushes every other item, making the once-thriving vocation turn inferior and less engaged.

“Now at present, Eleyan is given at the rate of ₦25,000 per shawl (ipele) even, despite the increases, it leaves no trace of relief in my spending because the income as weavers is too low to meet my family’s needs”, Abdulkareem grimly said, his voice faltering as he signed deeply.

Eleyan is another variety of Aso-ofi weaving, because of its elegance. It’s regarded as an expensive fabric among other varieties, owing to its fame and popularity.

With a different tale, Mr Taye Suleiman, a man in his 40s, was at his best as he shuffled a small wooden boat across the thread and locked it with the reel.  His feet are swift on the pedals of the loom, a symbol of oneness with the loom.

The warp is long, 10 metres away from the ofi where he sits to knot it with the weft in forming a beautiful pattern.

Mr Suleiman, who’s also a civil servant, has been in the line of weaving Aso-ofi for the past 20 years. He engages in the art to augment his salary so he can satisfy the needs of his family.

As a double earner, he switches and balances both jobs amiably.  “It has become my daily and habitual work to weave,”  he said.

His dexterity and energy were astounding as he answered this journalist smoothly without breaking from the weaving. He further explained that the prestige in weaving has been waned by the stringent effect  of fuel subsidy removal.

“The system of Aso-ofi is now different from how it used to be. For instance, if I collected N30,000 before, I would buy all types of food and things we wanted, but now the same amount cannot even buy a bag of rice”, he said, his voice weighed with heavy despair.

THE GENESIS

Following the inauguration of president Bola Ahmad Tinubu in May 2023,  his first directive was to remove the long-term relief subsidies from fuel which quickened the cost of items, triple their price.

Daily consumption skyrocketed above their normal prices, and Nigeria entered the unyielding doom of suffering.

The subsidy takes toll on both small and large businesses as they suffer the aftermath of the President’s first shot at power. This also leaves a devastating wince on Mallam S. M. Olayinka, a 45-year-old weaver, who has kept the line of weaving for as long as twenty-two years.

Mallam Olayinka weaves on his wooden loom at idi-ofi Shamsudeen Community.

As the family head, his three children’s schooling and other expenses are funnelled from his weaving income, but with the hike in the cost of food, his earnings could not sustain him the enormous chain again.

“We are just managing with the weaving, now that earning from aso–hihun (cloth weaving) cannot meet all our needs,” he lamented.

Aso-Oke weaving: a labour-intensive process

Aso-ofi weaving requires skill, patience and artistic technique. It is a labour-intensive process that is traditionally woven on a horizontal loom, a process that has remained largely unchanged for centuries.

Processing the local fabric into a finished product attracts a chain of activities— pre-production, production and post-production stages.

The first stage involves buying materials such as silk, metallic yarn, and cotton yarn, then laying the background of the metallic yarn on the ground. This is followed by rolling the background on a stick, fixing it into omu (a pair of well-knitted bunches of thread) and asa (a device weavers use to knit the background into fabric).

However, laying the background is a task that accrues reasonable incomes for Mr Adam. Oftentimes, the man in his 30s  earns as much as a weaver – if not more – on a daily basis.

“This is my childhood skill. I used to lay an ipele (a shawl) for ₦100 before everything went up,” he recalled.

“But after the inflation, I’m now laying Ipele for ₦200 and can do as much as my strength allows me in a day”, the 30-year-old worker added.

Making over  ₦10,000 or more in a day is a well-managed income for Adam and his family, even though he lamented the little trace it left on his responsibility.

At the pre-production stage, fibre yarn is processed, soaked in starchy water, and spread on a pole, which is followed by drying. After that, the fibre yarn is wound around bamboo sticks that have been cut to smaller sizes, called akao.

The production stage set is where the weaver soaks the yarn-laden bamboo stick in a bowl of water, wriggles it, then inserts it into a small-sized wooden reel casing known as oko to knit the background with the aid of asa (striker).

However, the cost of these materials and Aso-ofi weaving equipment, such as striker(asa), rose drastically as a result of fuel subsidy removal,  leaving weavers with no choice but to demand an increase in their wages.

Mr Lukman,  a weaver and merchant in the Aso-Oke business, compares the stance of aso-ofi in the past to the present period. He stated that financial constraints have deteriorated the business, leaving it on the verge of negligence and extinction.

Voicing the escalation of the cost of materials and weaving equipment as burdensome and imposing, he said, “Then, you could use N100,000 to start a business of Aso-oke with big and valued gain. We were buying crowntest materials for weaving between ₦270 and ₦290, but now, it’s ₦1,200, and if you want to start the business of aso-oke now, you must at least have up to 10 million naira to gain a foothold in it”, he stated.

Attributing the weariness in weaving Aso-Oke to the incessant inflation in weaving materials and depreciation in the purchasing power, which he said had triggered their employees to demand an increase in their wages.

He said, “Then, one ipele was given for ₦600 without any complaint, but now an ipele is given at ₦1,000 due to complaints from our employees.”

Sourcing Materials Poses a Major Challenge

Over the years, the relic of Aso-Oke has struggled to keep itself relevant in the contemporary fashion industry. While it may no longer enjoy the popularity and huge patronage of the past, owing to the prevalence of imported textile materials in the market and inflation.

Basically, materials used in the production of Aso-Oke are imported from China. The escalation in the cost of weaving equipment has rendered Nigerian textile products non-competitive and led to poor patronage.

The Nigerian Textile Manufacturers Association (NTMA) estimated that more than 95 per cent of Nigeria’s domestic textile market is dominated by imported fabrics and clothing materials.

A report from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) trade shows that the importation of textile and textile articles rose year-on-year by 258% from N48 billion in Q1 of 2020 to N171.8 billion in Q1 2021, showing the prevailing rate of importation in the country.

Mr Daniel Nwachukwu, a renowned fabric seller and textiles supplier, explained that over 90 per cent of textiles used for weaving are imported from China.

He asserted that difficulty in sourcing the textile materials was mainly triggered by over-dependence on imported items, which has led to neglect of the locally made items, and incessant inflation, which has depreciated the purchasing power.

“I used to realise over N2,000 on a carton of thread or more, depending on the companies I get supplies from,” he recalled.

“But following the fuel subsidy removal, everything changed drastically. We can’t spend like before, even though we still have our profit intact, but it trails nothing on our needs.”

He noted that a fully revived textile industry is capable of creating millions of job opportunities, addressing the challenges of dependence, improving internally generated revenue for the government and reducing the pressure on the country’s foreign exchange market.

ALSO READ TOP STORIES FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE