NIGERIA has bought nearly N1 trillion worth of raw sugar from Brazil three years after promising to end importation of the product.

Raw sugar serves as an input for manufacturers who refine it to produce industrial sugar as well as sucrose, also known as table sugar.

Between 2021 and 2023, Africa’s most populous nation imported sugar valued at N963.77 billion mainly from Brazil, according to data collated from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and the National Sugar Development Council (NSDC), analysed by Economy Post.

Major raw sugar users in Nigerian are Dangote Sugar, BUA Sugar, Golden Sugar, and KIA Group. Currently, no sugar company in Nigeria produces raw sugar from its own plantations but all the product is imported from Brazil, industry players said.

The Nigerian Sugar Master Plan(NSMP) was developed in 2012 by former Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr Olusegun Aganga. It was meant to serve as “a road map for the attainment of self-sufficiency in sugar within the shortest time possible.”

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The plan was to end sugar importation by 2020, while setting up 28 factories by end of that year. It was planned that by 2022, around 250,000 hectares of land would be under sugarcane cultivation.

However, some of the visions in the master plan were not realised by the set dates.

Sugar imports since 2012

Since the National Sugar Master Plan was documented in 2012, the country has imported raw sugar valued at billions of naira. In 2013, one year after the master plan was developed, the country bought N82.513 billion worth of sugar from Brazil. In 2014, sugar importation rose to N104.398 billion, increasing further to N157.428 billion by the end of 2016.

Source : NBS, NSDC

In fact, Nigeria’s raw sugar importation was estimated at N1.945 trillion between 2013 and half-year of 2023. About N963.769 billion worth of sugar was imported into the country after the 2020 target.

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Based on the data, sugar importation has become a worrisome phenomenon since the 2020 deadline. Raw sugar is imported with the foreign exchange, particularly dollars, and this is hurting Africa’s most populous nation which is facing its worst foreign exchange crunch in history.

Promises made, promises unkept

By 2012, the master plan had anticipated that the country would have 28 sugar factories by 2020, but that did not happen. Nigeria has more of deep-pocket sugar companies such as Dangote Sugar, BUA Sugar, Golden Sugar and KIA which have acquired some small-scale sugar firms.

More so, Nigeria currently has more refineries that firms turning raw sugar into finished products. The master plan had expected that sugar makers would have been able to obtain raw product from their plantations by now, but that is not happening.

Also, about 150,000 hectares are under sugarcane cultivation – 100,000 less than the targeted 250,000 hectares.

In 2017, the National Sugar Development Council in its midterm review of the three sugar-producing companies scored Golden Sugar Company – owned by Flour Mills – 58 percent. This was higher than any other company reviewed. While Dangote Sugar scored 45.8 percent, BUA Sugar got only 17 percent. However, nobody received sanctions from the government agency at that time.

Two years earlier, Ships & Ports had quoted former Director-General of NSDC, Dr. Abdullatif Busari, as saying that some firms flouted the terms and conditions for obtaining three-year low tariffs for sugar importation into Nigeria.

Sugar companies are investing

BUA has often been accused of falling short in the country’s sugar plan since it acquired the former Federal Government’s Lafiagi Sugar Company in 2008. It was accused of not developing the large plantation by 2016. However, the company said that there had been communal issues which prevented it from doing so. Things have changed since then as the firm is now putting money into the plantations. BUA Sugar recently said it was committed to the backward integration of the Nigerian government.

On the other hand, Dangote is eyeing 9,800 metric tonnes of sugar per day at the end of the current expansion at Numan, Adamawa State.

“As we produce 3800 tonnes per day, we are upgrading to another 6,300 tonnes per day,  and an additional 6000 is coming. The ultimate purpose is to have 9800 tonnes per day,” said Chief Executive Officer, Dangote Sugar Refinery, Numan, Adamawa State, Mr Chinnaya Sylvain Judex, as reported by Punch.

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At Tunga, Nasarawa State, where Dangote Sugar is also investing in sugar plantations, Agric Manager, Nasarawa Sugar Company Limited, Simon Ibetson said, “We are looking at producing sugar in a couple of years. Last year, we went up to 600 hectares. By 2024, we have to get up to phase 1, which will be another 2,000 hectares. We will be looking at 54 tonnes per 500 hectare. We are looking at 3,000 hectares by June 2024. We are looking at moving from 3,000 hectares  to 6,000 hectares from 2026,” Punch reported.

Flour mills’ owned Sunti Sugar Estates is considered by the industry as the most productive backward integration programme in the industry.

Former Executive Secretary of the NSDC, Mr Zacch Adedeji, said in 2022 that sugar makers were not exceeding their quota.

“In February 2022, we gave quotas to all operators. One of the requirements was their re-commitment to the master plan. True to what they have signed up to, none of them has deviated. The master plan is not just a policy but an Act of the National Assembly. So, you do not have a choice than to obey it because deviating from it will be unconstitutional. All our operators are law-abiding citizens of the country,” he said , as reported by Punch.

In October 2022, the Federal Government approved phase 2 of the new 10-year National Sugar Development Plan with a view to saving $350m annually while creating an extra 10,000 new jobs.

“As you rightly know, the NSMP isn’t about sugar production alone, we count largely on its ability to take millions of our people out of poverty, develop infrastructure and improve the economic status of communities hosting sugar projects,” Adedeji had said, as reported by BusinessDay.