President Bola Tinubu has urged African countries to end decades of dependence on exporting raw cocoa beans and instead prioritise value addition to capture a greater share of the global chocolate market.
Speaking at the Africa Cocoa Summit in Abuja, themed “From Bean to Brand,” Tinubu said Africa, despite producing about 70 per cent of the world’s cocoa, earns only a fraction of the industry’s value because it exports raw beans instead of finished products.
Represented by the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, the President said the continent retains barely six cents of every dollar generated by the global chocolate industry.
“We gathered in Abuja today not to lament that arithmetic. We gathered to end it,” he said.
Tinubu said Nigeria was committed to processing cocoa beans locally, manufacturing chocolate, building indigenous brands and competing globally rather than remaining a supplier of raw commodities.
He described cocoa value addition as a key pillar of the Renewed Hope Agenda and Nigeria’s industrialisation strategy.
According to him, investors are developing a 70,000-tonne cocoa processing facility in Shagamu, while the country’s installed cocoa grinding capacity has now exceeded 120,000 tonnes annually.
Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr. Jumoke Oduwole, said the summit aligns with the Federal Government’s goal of building a $1 trillion economy by 2030.
She noted that although Nigeria is a major cocoa producer, it captures only a small share of the value generated from the global cocoa industry.
Oduwole said the government was promoting value addition through manufacturing incentives, investment promotion and stronger collaboration among relevant agencies, while leveraging existing trade agreements and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) to improve market access.
She urged investors to take advantage of opportunities across regional and global cocoa value chains.
Also speaking, the Minister of State for Industry, Senator John Enoh, said the summit marked another milestone in implementing Nigeria’s Industrial Policy.
He announced plans for the Cocoa Value Addition Alliance, bringing together Nigeria, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire and Cameroon, which collectively produce about 75 per cent of the world’s cocoa.
According to him, the alliance will strengthen regional cooperation and enable producing countries to retain more value from the global cocoa market.
“We are not here to disrupt existing partnerships but to expand them,” Enoh said, urging African countries to focus on producing branded cocoa products instead of exporting raw beans.
Meanwhile, the Managing Director of the Bank of Industry (BOI), Dr. Olasupo Olusi, announced that the bank had secured a €60 million credit facility from the European Investment Bank (EIB) to accelerate Nigeria’s cocoa value addition drive.
Olusi said the facility would finance cocoa processing, ingredient manufacturing, packaging and chocolate production, enabling Nigerian processors to compete more effectively with multinational firms that enjoy cheaper financing.
He added that the funding forms part of BOI’s broader strategy to mobilise blended, concessional and long-term capital for the cocoa sector.
Beyond the EIB facility, Olusi said BOI plans to establish a Cocoa Value Addition Park in Nigeria’s cocoa-producing belt, equipped with shared processing lines, quality laboratories, reliable power supply, effluent treatment systems and digital traceability infrastructure.
“We are not approaching cocoa as a lending programme; we are building an industrial ecosystem,” he said.
Olusi stressed that cocoa financing must reflect the realities of the sector, including long gestation periods for new plantations, seasonal funding needs for processors and long-term capital requirements for manufacturing facilities.
He disclosed that BOI disbursed more than ₦164 billion to over 3,500 agro-processing businesses in 2025, supporting factories, mills, packhouses and cold-chain infrastructure while integrating nearly 48,000 smallholder farmers into industrial value chains.
Although Nigeria produces more than 300,000 tonnes of cocoa annually, Olusi said the country currently processes only about 50,000 tonnes, adding that expanding local processing could increase export earnings by two to four times.
He added that BOI’s financing package would be complemented by business development support, technical advisory services and enterprise training to improve quality standards, costing and export readiness.
