An Exploration of Emerging Corrupt Practices Among Textile Dealers in Egbeda Local Government Area of Oyo State, Nigeria

Rural dwellers as textile consumers are prone to the pandemic corrupt practices of dealers involved in textile manufacturing and merchandising. The need to ensure that consumers get value for money spent on textile materials led to this study. The study investigated the corrupt practices among textile dealers in rural areas of Oyo State. Structured interview schedule was used to elicit information from 216 consumers in Kukumoda village, in Oyo State using purposive sampling technique. Data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics. The results revealed that the respondents had a mean age of 35.5 years, 66.6% were females and 70.3% were married. Educational level of respondents shows that majority were non-literate. Analysis of the corrupt practices of textile dealers shows that all (100%) of the respondents had experienced colour bleeding, sub- standard and counterfeit textiles materials (100%). Other major corrupt practices were: wrong branding and labelling (97.3%), measurement cheat (85.1%), exchange of textiles for low quality after payment (77.8%) while 52.5% had suffered from used imported textiles not subjected to health check. Consequences of corrupt practices of textile dealers include: frequent replacement of textiles and loss of confidence in locally made textiles among others. This shows that consumers in the study area made choices in the consumption of textiles based on false claims by dealers. There is an urgent need for legislation to provide consumers with more reliable and comprehensive information about the content and the composition of the textile materials. Standard Organization of Nigeria (SON) should be empowered to penalize erring manufacturers.