Steadily and successfully, Nigeria is moving faster than what most people anticipated in the area of improving and diversifying its revenue base and exporting its products to the world market.
Prior to the coming of the President Buhari administration in 2015, Nigeria depended largely on meeting its Sugar needs through importation. This implies that the industry has been comatose before the arrival of its messiah in 2015.
It is not an exageration to say that Nigeria had spent so much of its foreign reserve on financing Sugar importation over the years due to the failure of previous governments to patriotically look inwards to producing sugar in the country.
After a recent weekly meeting of the country’s highest decision-making body, the Federal Executive Council, FEC, it gave an instant approval for the take-off of the second phase of the National Sugar Masterplan. The first phase of the masterplan which was approved in 2012, was to last from 2012 to 2022.
The 10-year plan is billed to save $350 million annually from the country’s foreign reserve and create 110,000 direct and indirect jobs in the sugar industry value chain.
The country’s Industry, Trade and Investment Minister, Niyi Adebayo who made the disclosure was quick to add that the country looks forward to save $65.8 million on ethanol import and generate 400 megawatts of electricity.
The PMB administration has committed itself to emphasising that investments in national sugar policy were aimed at stimulating self-sufficiency in the commodity,
It is on record that due to a number of incentives offered by the Federal Government since 2015 as part of the National Sugar Policy, key players in the industry like Dangote, BUA, Golden Sugar Mills, among other stakeholders, today jointly own about 200,000 hectares of sugarcane plantations in the country.
The second phase which runs from 2023-2033 for another 10 years is for the development of the sugar industry towards self-sufficiency in sugar production.
Indeed the sugar masterplan had witnessed many successes since 2012 when it was first approved. Presently, Nigeria has a sugar refining capacity of three million metric tons of raw sugar yearly.
It is very heartwarming that the PMB administration’s Backward Integration Project, BIP which has attracted over $3 billion worth of investments from the four major investors to the industry is on course for the good of all Nigerians.
Further investments have also been made in Greenfield Sugar Projects supported by government which included smaller projects across the country in Jigawa, Kogi, Zamfara, Oyo and Sokoto States. Furthermore, Government established the National Sugar Institute in Ilorin.
Going by the current attention government is giving to the industry, Nigeria is hopeful that it will be able to produce 1.7-1.8 million metric tons of sugar yearly, thus eliminating the $350 million that we spend on the importation of raw sugar.
The country also hopes to produce 161 million litres of ethanol and 1.6 million tons of animal feeds annually. If these are not milestones to celebrate, i dont know what else can.
Government, in its strategic plan to ensure free flow of the mechanisms built to protect the flow of the masterplan, had adopted a two-tier monitoring and evaluation framework.
Towards this end, Government has set up a Sugar Roadmap Implementation Committee, SURMIC as a multi-agency committee charged with the responsibility of supervising the implementation of the National Sugar Masterplan.
Similarly. Government has also established another committee, the Sugar Industry Monitoring Group, SIMOG comprising of chief executives of all the local sugar manufacturing companies. This is like a peer review committee charged with the responsibility of ensuring that there is no distortion of the country’s sugar masterplan.
All these efforts are, in addition, geared towards leading the country to self suffiency in sugar production and also exporting raw sugar to the outside. World.
Without mincing words, Nigeria is surely getting it right in its diversification agenda. This is becoming real as it is boosting its revenue base and preserving forex for basic and other necessary needs through this breakthrough in sugar production.
MUSA ILALLAH
EMEKA ANYAOKU STREET, ABUJA
musahk123@yahoo.com
