by Ayo Akinfe
Kolanuts symbolise everything that is wrong with Nigeria, and how Tinubu deals with this crop will provide an insight into how he thinks.
[1] Nigeria is the world’s largest kola nut producer accounting for about 54% of global output. We produce approximately 150,000 tonnes of kola nuts annually, which sell for $3,800 a tonne. Our export earnings from kola nuts can only be described as pathetic and derisory
[2] In 2023, wine distillers increasingly use kola nuts in their red wine. In 2020, the global red wine market was valued at $182bn and is projected to grow to $278.5bn by 2028. If I were in President Tinubu’s shoes, I would have my eyes firmly on this kind of revenue
[3] In Igboland, there is a saying that: “He who brings the kola nut brings life.” In pre-crude oil Igboland, kola nut production was widespread, but alas, we have not got around to producing kola nuts on an industrial scale. We have not got to grips with the concept of commercial farming
[4] Coca-Cola derived its name from the kola nut, which it used to flavour its drinks. The soft drinks and confectionary market is where billions could be made. President Tinubu needs to sit down with Coca-Cola and enter into a deal that makes Nigeria their main global partner
[5] This is where Nigeria has to learn from the West. When anything is important to their economies, laws are passed describing them as environmentally friendly and compulsory. If we could get the United Nations, WEF, UNESCO, UNICEF, the World Health Organisation, etc, to demand that, at the very minimum, every can of Coca-Cola must contain 15% kola nuts, Nigeria is sorted. It would be a licence to print money
[6] President Tinubu needs to develop a unique programme that makes Nigeria’s tropical rainforest the world’s largest kolanut producing and processing region. This area that stretches from Cross River to Lagos to Taraba states should be littered with kola nut plantations and distilleries processing it into wine as happens in southern France and Italy
[7] Italy is currently the world’s largest wine producer, followed by France, Spain, Germany, the US, Australia, China, Argentina, South Africa and Chile. That should not be the case with our dominance of kola nut production. Nigeria should easily be the biggest producer of red wine on the planet
[8] Africa as a continent only accounts for 4% of global trade and, more shockingly, only accounts for $2.1trn of the world’s $80trn gross domestic product (GDP). How can you have 18% of the world’s population but just 4% of trade, 2.6% of GDP and 1% of manufacturing? That is simply not sustainable, and Nigeria needs to lead the charge to change this
[9] John Pemberton, the pharmacist who started Coca-Cola, decided to use his pharmaceutical skills to develop a cure for his morphine addiction, so he started experimenting with various plants, including kola nuts. In 1866, he started selling an alcoholic drink named Pemberton’s French Wine Coca, and that is how it all began. Today, Coca-Cola no longer has any kola nuts as it has artificial and synthetic ingredients, but we need to change this. We argue that it is inorganic, unhealthy, injurious to human life, environmentally unfriendly and polluting, etc, to use artificial products in Coca-Cola. If we can win that argument, poverty will be banished in Nigeria overnight
[10] If President Tinubu can get the world’s wine distillers and Coca-Cola to start using Nigerian kola nuts in their products, our insane dependency on crude oil will end overnight. All we then have to do is expand production and then woo investors to open processing facilities in Nigeriakola nuts
