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Nigerian Sugar Market – Dangote
The Nigerian Sugar industry is one of the most inefficiently run and under developed in Africa. Surprisingly, this situation has persisted despite the fact that Nigeria with a population of about 140 million is a huge sugar consuming population. Accordingly, Nigeria remains a country dependent on imported sugar. Since the oil boom in the 1970, Nigeria’s focus on agriculture has dropped significantly such that sugar cane is barely cultivated. At the same time, the lack of sufficient capacity to convert sugar cane into refined sugar hinders sugar production in the country and as a result whatever little amount of sugar cane is produced is used for direct consumption or in the production of inferior local ‘brown sugar’.
Presently there are only six integrated sugar companies operating in Nigeria. These include the Nigerian Sugar company, Sunti Sugar Company, Savannah Sugar Company (recently acquired by Dangote Industries Limited under the BPE privatization scheme), Lafiagi Sugar – all established by the Federal Government post independence to promote the country’s self-reliance on local sugar production and recently, BUA Sugar Refinery. Together their total capacity of 2.4 million metric tons of sugar annually fails to meet Nigeria’s demand for sugar at an estimated 3.0-3.5 million metric tons per annum.
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