Mrs Catherine Olubakinde, the Chief Executive Officer of Eruvwu Designs, on Wednesday called on the Federal Government to partner with the private sector to establish schools of lapidary.Olubakinde said this call had become imperative as government was particularly keen on encouraging patronage of made-in-Nigeria goods.
People are trained on how to polish and refine gem stones in school of lapidary
She said these refined gemstones would later be stringed into jewelleries.
She pointed out that raw gems are always taken to China and Italy to be refined and later brought back to the country to be used for making jewelleries.
“Since we have the raw materials in abundance in the country, I see no reason why we should be exporting the raw material for refining’’, the bead maker said.
Olubakinde said foreign gemstone refiners determined the quality of the gems.
She said Nigerians were often exposed to and sold the lower quality gemstones after refining, adding that these low quality stones faded with time.
“We are really going through hell to get quality beads’’, the bead maker said.
According to her, although gemstones are abundant in Nigeria, it was regrettable that there are no professionals trained to refine them to speed up the process of production generally.
“When we have these schools in the country, we can then dictate the quality of jewelleries we produce and other countries will purchase from us’’, Olubakinde said.
