NSDC: Sugar Industry Can Boost Economy, Tackle Unemployment, Insecurity

Sunday Ehigiator

The Executive Secretary and Chief Executive Officer of the National Sugar Development Council (NSDC), Mr. Kamar Bakrin, has said Nigeria’s sugar industry possesses the capacity to stimulate economic growth, create massive employment opportunities and help address insecurity across the country.

Bakrin stated this during a strategic meeting between the NSDC and the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) at the Customs Headquarters in Abuja.

He explained that the successful implementation of the Nigeria Sugar Master Plan II (NSMP II) would help reverse the country’s dependence on sugar imports by encouraging large-scale local production and investment.

According to him, the sugar sector could convert over $1 billion currently spent annually on sugar imports into investments capable of driving industrialisation and rural development.

“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,” Bakrin said.

“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.”

The NSDC boss noted that the development of sugar estates would help tackle insecurity by creating employment opportunities for youths in rural communities.

“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.

Responding, the Comptroller-General of Customs, Mr. Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, expressed support for the sugar sector transformation agenda, noting that the industry aligns with Nigeria’s economic priorities.

“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 Customs’ readiness to strengthen intelligence sharing, quota enforcement, operational collaboration and data transparency to ensure effective implementation of the NSMP II.