From Ademola Pedro
President Bola Tinubu has declared an end to Nigeria’s raw cocoa bean exports, announcing an ambitious plan to transform the country into a cocoa processing powerhouse through industrialization and value addition.
Speaking Tuesday at the Cocoa Value Addition Summit 2026 in Abuja, represented by Agriculture Minister Senator Abubakar Kyari, the President declared that Nigeria would no longer ship raw beans abroad while importing finished chocolate products. The summit, themed, From Bean to Brand, The Bean in My Hand, The Brand in Our Future, gathered ministers, governors, investors, and international partners to launch a new roadmap for Africa’s cocoa industry.
Tinubu noted that while Africa produces approximately 70% of the world’s cocoa, the continent captures only a fraction of the over $130 billion global chocolate industry, with most processing and branding occurring overseas.
Seven of every ten cocoa pods on this earth ripen under the African sun, the President said. Nigeria will no longer export raw beans while importing finished value. We will grind our beans at home, press our butter at home, make our chocolate at home, brand it at home, and sell it to the world on our own terms.
The President pointed to tangible progress, including a 70,000 ton processing facility under construction in Sagamu, Nigeria’s largest and national grinding capacity that has surpassed 120,000 tons annually. The Bank of Industry has been positioned as a summit co convener with capital ready for investment in viable projects.
With over 300,000 farming families cultivating cocoa across more than 1.4 million hectares, Nigeria ranks among the world’s leading producers with 6-7% of global output. Cocoa generated over N3 trillion in export earnings when global prices exceeded $10,000 per tonne, contributing nearly a quarter of the country’s non oil exports.
Value addition is not a project to be done around you. It is a covenant to be kept with you, Tinubu declared, addressing Nigeria’s farmers directly. For a century, the reward of this harvest has been far from the hands that raise it.
Minister of State for Industry Senator John Owan Enoh emphasized that the summit implements President Tinubu’s Nigerian Industrial Policy, which aims to boost domestic manufacturing and reduce raw commodity dependence.
We are not interested in exporting anonymous sacks anymore. We are interested in exporting value, Enoh stated, adding that Nigeria’s trillion dollar economy ambitions require moving beyond raw material exports to capture wealth from processing and branding.
