Amide seeks ban on clay bricks import, launches N4.5b factory

One of the leading firms in the promotion of affordable building materials, Amide Clay Industries Nigeria Limited has urged the Federal Government to ban the importation of clay bricks into the country.

Speaking on the completion its N4.5 billion modern factory in Olapeleke town in Ewekoro Local council, Ogun State, the chairman of the company, Toyin Adeyinka, an engineer, frowned at the continued importation of facing tiles from South Africa and other Asian countries, saying such policy deprives Nigeria huge foreign exchange and growth of local industries.

The company, a subsidiary of Sparklight Group, is billed to commission two major arms of the factory: The kiln and artificial dryer.

“Before now the company was using the old fashioned permanent clamp kiln with a capacity of 20 million standard bricks per annum.

“We were using the clamp kiln for firing and open air-drying process. Now, we have moved to artificial drying, which is a major step that increased the capacity of our production from barely four million bricks per annum to 20 million bricks,” he said.

Adeyinka disclosed that the factory was sited within the Olapeleke environment because the required clay deposit is found in the locality. The company has a mining licence from the federal government.

On the demand for bricks, he said: “There is a huge demand for bricks in the country. We have been able to convince some arms of government adopt bricks in the construction of houses. As a structural engineer, there are some structures; we deliberately recommend that it should be light loaded due to the characteristics of bricks. Bricks are lighter and if you want to reduce the load on a particular structure, we advice the builder to adopt clay bricks.

That is another source of demand.

“What we are doing with Amide is a silent revolution. We’re setting up a Nigeria Brick Industry Institute like in the United States, which membership will be opened to the public. It will be a forum to exchange ideas.” He added.

The director, Subsidiary and Production, Sparklight Group, Adeoye Adeyinka explained that there are three major steps in the production process.