Nigeria’s Sugar Sector Gets Fresh Push as NSDC Tightens Enforcement

The National Sugar Development Council (NSDC) is repositioning Nigeria’s sugar sector as a major industrial investment opportunity through a $1 billion EPC-plus-finance partnership with SINOMACH of China, a ₦10 billion Sugar Project Acceleration Fund established with the Bank of Industry, and strengthened accountability under the Backward Integration Programme (BIP).

The Executive Secretary/CEO of the Council, Mr. Kamar Bakrin, disclosed this when he received members of the Abuja Chapter of the Chartered Institute of Directors (CIoD) on a courtesy visit to the NSDC headquarters in Abuja.
Nigeria consumes about 1.8 million metric tonnes of sugar annually, with an estimated $1 billion spent each year on foreign producers. Bakrin said the Council sees the situation as a ready-made domestic market that can be recaptured by Nigerian producers, with the Nigeria Sugar Master Plan (NSMP) 2.0 designed to retain the value within the country through job creation, increased rural incomes, foreign exchange savings and industrial development.
He said the major challenge facing the sector has not been a lack of policies, but poor execution, stressing that the Council is now directly addressing the governance gap.
“We don’t lack policy. What we have struggled with is world-class execution,” Bakrin said, adding that the challenge was not fundamentally a farming problem but a governance issue that well-run institutions could resolve.
He described NSMP 2.0 as an “acceleration mandate” aimed at shortening Nigeria’s journey to sugar self-sufficiency and delivering about two million metric tonnes of locally produced sugar.
Beyond Sugar: Building a Bio-Industrial Ecosystem
Bakrin said the Council’s ambition goes beyond replacing imported sugar, noting that sugarcane can produce sugar, ethanol, animal feed and electricity.
He said NSMP 2.0 is therefore designed to develop a complete bio-industrial ecosystem around sugarcane rather than treating it merely as a commodity.
On enforcement, the Executive Secretary said the Backward Integration Programme had been rebuilt around four principles: qualify, reward, verify and enforce.
According to him, companies seeking import quotas must demonstrate genuine commitment to backward integration, while major refiners are required to provide audited production commitments linked to their quotas, with consequences for failure to meet them.
The Council, he added, is also deploying satellite imagery alongside field inspections to independently verify activities at project sites, replacing self-reporting with objective, data-driven monitoring.
Bakrin said the Council had identified the major financing challenge in the sector as the shortage of bankable projects capable of attracting available capital. To address this, the NSDC is industrialising project preparation.
The ₦10 billion Sugar Project Acceleration Fund, established in partnership with the Bank of Industry, will finance feasibility studies and project preparation, turning greenfield sites into investment-ready projects.
These projects will feed into the $1 billion EPC-plus-finance agreement with SINOMACH of China, providing a channel for construction and financing once projects are properly prepared.
The Council is also engaging Afreximbank and partnering with the Nigeria Governors’ Forum to accelerate the development of sugar estates across the country.
Bakrin highlighted the Sugarcane Outgrower Development Programme (SODP) as a strategy for making smallholder farmers co-owners of the sector’s growth.
Under NSMP 2.0, sugar estates are required to reserve land for outgrowers and invest part of their capital in host communities through social infrastructure, employment and physical infrastructure. This, he said, makes rural prosperity a core component of the programme.
Drawing from the Council’s recent engagements with Brazilian authorities and other leading sugar-producing countries, Bakrin said the major lesson from Brazil’s success was institutional rather than agronomic.
“Brazil did not win by planting better cane. They won by building institutions that compounded productivity for years, for decades,” he said.
He said the Council was applying the same principle internally by developing Standard Operating Procedures across its critical support functions using Six Sigma methodology to create standardised, repeatable and effective processes that can survive beyond the tenure of individual officials.
“I hold a very strong conviction that the difference between the countries that industrialised and those that did not rarely has to do with the quality of their plants. It is the quality of their institutions,” the Executive Secretary said.
Bakrin invited the Chartered Institute of Directors to actively participate in the emerging sugar economy by strengthening board governance across sugar estates, mills and outgrower companies, as well as contributing to policy discussions and consistency required to attract long-term capital.
He assured the Institute that the Council remained open to partnerships that would support national development.
Earlier, the leader of the CIoD delegation, Mrs. Fatima Nana Mede, commended the Council’s leadership and the reforms being implemented in the sugar industry, as well as the momentum towards self-sufficiency.
She affirmed the Institute’s readiness to collaborate with the Council in areas of mutual interest as part of its contribution to the development of Nigeria’s sugar sector.
About NSMP 2.0
The Nigeria Sugar Master Plan (NSMP) 2.0 is designed to accelerate Nigeria’s drive towards sugar self-sufficiency by mobilising a $1 billion investment pipeline, strengthening accountability and enforcement, financing bankable sugar projects, empowering outgrower farmers and developing sugarcane into a diversified bio-industrial ecosystem for sugar, ethanol, animal feed and power.