The Executive Secretary/CEO of the National Sugar Development Council (NSDC), Mr. Kamar Bakrin (L), with the Comptroller-General of Customs, Mr. Bashir Adewale Adeniyi.
By Felix Khanoba
The Executive Secretary and Chief Executive Officer of the National Sugar Development Council (NSDC), Mr. Kamar Bakrin, has said the development of Nigeria’s sugar industry could significantly reduce unemployment, improve security, and stimulate rural development across the country.
Bakrin stated this during a strategic engagement between the NSDC and the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) at the Customs Headquarters in Abuja.
Speaking to the Comptroller-General of Customs, Mr. Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, alongside senior officials of the Service, the NSDC boss explained that a well-developed sugar sector would help retain over one billion dollars currently lost annually to sugar imports while creating employment opportunities and driving industrial growth.
“If Nigeria succeeds in developing a proper sugar sector, one of the things we would do is convert an annual outflow of over one billion dollars into jobs, security, and industrialisation.
“The sector can create 250,000 direct jobs and an additional indirect 750,000 jobs across its value chain, primarily across about 12 states. The beauty of it is that these are rural jobs, not city jobs.”
Bakrin noted that sugar estate projects could also contribute to addressing insecurity by engaging large numbers of unemployed youths in productive ventures.
“When you have sugar projects, you don’t have unrest or any security challenge because you create so many jobs for the youths,” he stated.
He further explained that sugar estates possess the capacity to generate electricity independently, with surplus energy supplied to the national grid.
“A sugar estate provides its own power; it does not rely on the national grid. As a matter of fact, it contributes to the national grid. A sugar estate consumes only about 50 percent of the energy it produces, while the rest can be injected into the national grid,” Mr. Bakrin stated.
“And we are talking about 400 megawatts. That is enough to power at least a small modern city or community,” he added.
According to him, the sugar sector offers wider economic benefits beyond production, including infrastructure growth, energy generation, rural industrialisation, and economic diversification.
Bakrin described the Nigeria Customs Service as a critical institution in achieving the goals of the Nigeria Sugar Master Plan (NSMP), particularly in the areas of quota administration, anti-smuggling enforcement, fiscal incentives, and import regulation.
He said the Federal Government was committed to reducing dependence on imported sugar by encouraging investments in local production through policy consistency and institutional cooperation.
The NSDC boss also revealed that Nigeria has more than one million hectares of suitable land for sugar cultivation, adding that only about 200,000 hectares would be needed for the country to achieve self-sufficiency in sugar production.
He stressed that investors willing to commit billions of dollars into the sector require assurance that government policies and incentives would be implemented transparently and consistently.
Responding, the Comptroller-General of Customs, Mr. Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, reaffirmed the Service’s support for the sugar sector transformation agenda, describing the industry’s projected energy contribution as a major economic opportunity for the country.
“The potential for job creation, security, rural development, and the added value in terms of energy that we can use speaks directly to Nigeria’s economic priorities,” Adeniyi stated.
He assured the NSDC of the Customs Service’s commitment to enhanced intelligence sharing, operational collaboration, quota enforcement, and improved data transparency for the effective implementation of the NSMP II.
Both agencies also pledged to collaborate in five critical areas aimed at resolving long-standing challenges affecting sugar estate sustainability and attracting investment into the sector.
The identified priority areas include market stability, access to import and importer information, quota allocation implementation, enforcement of sugar incentives, and the fight against smuggling.
Bakrin explained that the partnership would ensure that approved fiscal incentives, duty waivers, and tariff concessions are granted only to verified operators, while also improving real-time data sharing on sugar imports and strengthening enforcement measures against illicit imports.
The agencies further agreed to establish a joint intelligence and enforcement team to combat sugar smuggling and fast-track the clearance of approved machinery and equipment for operators in the sector.
Adeniyi also proposed regular review meetings between both organisations to monitor progress, address operational concerns, and jointly brief President Bola Tinubu on developments in the sugar industry.
