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Tag: chocolate

  • Feature- #MakeNigeriaBetter: Benue State

    Feature- #MakeNigeriaBetter: Benue State

    by Ayo Akinfe

    Our make Nigeria Better Series takes us to Benue State today and we look at the goldmine that is being sat upon there

    [1] Known as the bread basket of the nation, Benue State arguably produces more food than any other state in the federation. It should be home to the world’s largest food processing plants with zero unemployment

    [2] Do you know that Nigeria accounts for 70% of global yam production and Benue State is our major producer. Yam alone should fuel the economy of Benue State, with the state producing pounded yam, yam flour, yam meal, etc

    [3] Now, the supply of tropical farm produce is one area where Nigeria has a competitive edge. We are the world’s largest producer of certain tropical crops like yam, cassava, shea nuts, kolanuts, cashews, melon seeds, gourds, etc and can literally do what we want in the global marketplace with these crops. We should make Benue State the world’s largest producer of all these crops

    [4] Why for instance can we not offer designer yams in the shapes and forms people want and deliver them to anywhere in the world at a premium? If people buy bespoke wine, cars, watches, chocolate and manufactured goods, why can’t this apply to the agricultural produce we supply too?

    [5] All we really need to do is work on our food preservation technology so that for instance a tuber of yam can last for a year without going off. Why can we not for instance supply a Merry Christmas sign designed of yam, deliverable to every country in the world?

    [6] You know, once we have a breakthrough with one crop, the floodgates will open. I can see all the world’s major food companies coming to Nigeria to open manufacturing facilities

    [7] Benue State’s large urban centres like Makurdi, Gboko, Oturkpo, Katsina-Ala, etc, should all be major industrial centres with giant food processing plants

    [8] In addition, Benue State also straddles to River Benue. Can someone please explain to me why the state government has not build a 10,000MW hydroelectric power plant at somewhere like Gbajimba?

    [9] Given how the River Benue overfloods its banks every year. What should happen is that the Benue State government should build a mega artificial reservoir at somewhere like Ajebe or Oweto and use it to provide water for irrigation to all of Nigeria’s states

    [10] Benue State should also exploit its position as a major transit point. It is a key link between the north and south of the country so should have a thriving hospitality industry with hotels, theme parks, fair grounds, restaurants, etc in all of its major cities like Makurdi, Gboko, Oturkpo and Katsina-Ala

  • Feature- #MakeNigeriaBetter: Ondo State

    Feature- #MakeNigeriaBetter: Ondo State

    As we step up our review of what each of Nigeria’s 36 states can bring to the table, today we examine Ondo State, the territory with the largest tropical rainforest area in the country

    Ayo Akinfe

    [1] Ondo State has the largest tropical rainforest area in Nigeria, so it is no surprise that it is the country’s largest cocoa producer. Known as “the food of the gods, cocoa needs the canopy of the tropical rainforest to grow. Ondo State should thus have an economy centred around cocoa growing, processing and chocolate production. I am sure most Nigerians do not know that Ondo is also Nigeria’s fifth largest crude oil producer after Akwa Ibom, Rivers, Bayelsa and Delta states

    [2] Can someone please explain why the Ondo State government has not built the world’s largest cocoa plantation in Owena. Nigeria is currently the world’s sixth largest cocoa producer with an output of about 245,000 tonnes and Ondo State is the largest producer in Nigeria. This Owena plantation should have an output of about 10,000 tonnes with the potential to rise to 50,000 tonnes

    [3] Then, the state government should build Africa’s largest cocoa-grinding plant in Ondo City. Emulating the vision of Alhassan Dantata, they should gather cocos beans from farmers over a 200-mile radius stretching to Ado Ekiti, Akure, Owo, Idanre, Ilesha and as far south as Ilaro. Beans will be ground into cocoa butter and powder at this plant employing as many as 1,000 staff

    [4] Our Ondo State governor should then approach chocolate companies like Nestle, Mars, Cadburys, Barry Callebaut and Lindt & Sprüngli, asking them to build a chocolate processing plant at Ore, the gateway between eastern and western Nigeria. This will make Ondo State the agro-processing capital of Nigeria. It will be a game changer that alters the state of the Nigerian economy forever

    [5] To process chocolate, you need other things like sugar, milk, peanuts, cashews, coconuts, shea nuts etc. Ondo State government should thus initiate plans to grow coconuts in its coastal areas in places like Aiyetoro, Mahin, Igbotu and Igbobini in Ilaje Local Government Area. Joint ventures should then be entered into with other states to produce other ingredients. For instance – Kwara (Sugarcane), Kano (groundnuts), Ogun (Cashews), Benue (Shea nuts). These states should then all be linked with a railway cargo network so goods can be transferred from one point to another with ease

    [6] Ondo State then needs to construct a cargo export terminal along the coast at Aiyetoro to export finished products. What I have in mind is the building of a packaging plant there so that Ondo State can actually export retail-ready finished products to anywhere in the world. To augment this, the Ondo State government should then ask investors if they are interested in building a cargo terminal at Akure Airport so their goods can be flown out if need be. Companies like Nestle, Mars, Cadburys, Barry Callebaut and Lindt & Sprüngli build such terminals all over the world to ship their products

    [7] For me, however, Ore remains the joker in the pack. It is the gateway between eastern and western Nigerian and simply has to become one of the most industrialised cities in Nigeria. Ore must become an industrial hub similar to Nnewi and Aba. It should be developed into a major travel stopover joint, too with hotels, fairground rides, restaurants, etc

    [8] More importantly, Ore should have a battery warehouse built to halve the trip between Lagos and the southeast geo-political zone. That was how Cape Town in South Africa was built. It served as a halfway stop over point between Europe and Asia, halving the trips merchants needed to make

    [9] Our Ondo State government should then expand the production of cash crops like palm oil, kolanuts, rubber, timber, cassava and maize. Other parts of the world like Bahia in Brazil, Sumatra in Indonesia, Borneo in Malaysia, Entre Rios in Argentina, India’s Uttar Pradesh or Punjab in Pakistan generate as much as $50bn in some instances in foreign exchange earnings and that must be our goal in Ondo State. Malaysia for instance makes $10bn from palm oil exports alone

    [10] How many Nigerians know that Ondo State is sitting on $10bn worth of annual bitumen exports. Other juicy assets it has include the tourist attraction Idanre Hills and the Oluwa Glass Company. Ondo State could easily be self-sufficient without any federal allocation. Over the next five years, it should have export revenue projections that look like this: cocoa – $10bn; bitumen – $10bn; tourism – $10bn, palm oil – $5bn, timber – $5bn; transport – $5bn; kolanuts – $5bn; cassava – $5bn, glass – $5bn

  • Feature: Mandate for the Minister for Manufacturing

    Feature: Mandate for the Minister for Manufacturing

    Personally, I am disappointed that President Tinubu did not appoint a dedicated minister for manufacturing with a mandate to turn the following cities into specialist industrial zones:

    Ayo Akinfe

    [1] Nnewi – Automobile manufacturing
    [2] Akure – Cocoa processing and chocolate
    [3] Orlu – Pharmaceuticals
    [4] Aba – Clothing and footwear
    [5] Abeokuta – Railway carriages and engines
    [6] Kano – Groundnut, neem, millet and sorghum processing
    [7] Damaturu – Dairy products
    [8] Port Harcourt – Shipbuilding, boatmaking and fishing equipment
    [9] Calabar – Aircraft assembly
    [10] Ajaokuta – Steel, machine tools and metal manufacturing
    [11] Asaba – Wood products and furniture
    [12] Lokoja – Hydroelectric power generation
    [13] Sokoto – Solar farm
    [14] Ikot-Abasi – Port handling equipment
    [15] Maiduguri – Solar panels and electricity transformers
    [16] Uyo – Windmills
    [17] Badagry – Coconut and cashew processing
    [18] Ilorin – Sugar production
    [19] Makurdi – Yam and cassava processing
    [20] Minna – Shea nut and kolanut processing

  • Feature: Selected unique Agricultural Policy for Nigeria

    Feature: Selected unique Agricultural Policy for Nigeria

    by Ayo Akinfe

    If Bola Tinubu is serious about solving Nigeria’s economic woes, he needs to come up with a unique agriculture policy centred around designer farming and processing.

    [1] I have always believed that our innovative spirit will get Nigeria out of the economic doldrums and give us a gross domestic product (GDP) of $2trn in the not-too-distant future. Unfortunately, crude oil is acting as a huge distraction at the moment. It is a real fly in the ointment, and at some stage, we need to turn the taps off to get us thinking

    [2] Nigerians differ from every other African because of our ability to “manage” things and our knack for “trying.” We are a very innovative people. You just need to see the way our mechanics will get a 30-year-old gearbox to work, how we panel beat 60-year-old lorries or how we fix the compressors of 40-year-old fridges to appreciate our innovative capability

    [3] I once had a Guinean friend who wanted to ship a right-hand car back home from the UK ask me for a mechanic in Lagos who could charge over the steering wheel. It was then that I got to know that all West Africans change the hand of their cars in Nigeria before driving them to their nations

    [4] Our biggest problem remains our inability to tap into this spirit en masse. One of the positive impacts of China on Nigeria, however, is that it shows us that we can push the boundaries of innovation to whatever level we want. Today, China is growing food in factories, building glass bridges, launching artificial moons in place of streetlights and has inter-continental ballistic missiles that can probably reach Mars

    [5] By 2050, Nigeria will become the world’s third largest nation after China and India, so we must stop thinking like a developing nation and adjust our brains to think and act like citizens of an industrialised country. For starters, we carry the weight of 370m West Africans on our shoulders

    [6] Just to let you know how Nigeria has dropped the ball, do you know that Aliko Dangote’s tomato paste factory shut down in Kano in 2019 because it could not gather enough tomatoes. Clearly, Aliko Dangote did not learn the lesson of his grandfather Alhassan Dantata, who went around northern Nigeria collecting groundnuts. Dangote should have initiated a West African Tomato Collection Programme so that, if anything, he would need to open another paste factory due to an over-abundance of tomatoes

    [7] Now, the supply of farm produce is where Nigeria has a competitive edge. We are the world’s largest producer of certain tropical crops like yam, cassava, shea nuts, kolanuts, cashews, melon seeds, gourds, etc and can literally do what we want in the global marketplace with these crops

    [8] Why, for instance, can we not offer designer yams in the shapes and forms people want and deliver them anywhere in the world at a premium? If people buy bespoke wine, cars, watches, chocolate and manufactured goods, why can’t this apply to the agricultural produce we supply too?

    [9] We need to work on our food preservation technology so that, for instance, a yam tuber can last for a year without going off. Why can we not, for instance, supply a Merry Christmas sign designed of yam, deliverable to every country worldwide?

    [10] Once we have a breakthrough with one crop, the floodgates will open. I can see all the world’s major food companies coming to Nigeria to open manufacturing facilities