Nigeria’s sugar industry could become one of the country’s biggest sources of rural jobs and industrial growth if properly developed, according to the Executive Secretary of the National Sugar Development Council (NSDC), Kamar Bakrin.

Speaking during a strategic meeting between the NSDC and the Nigeria Customs Service in Abuja, Bakrin said a fully developed sugar sector has the potential to create up to one million jobs while also helping tackle insecurity by expanding economic opportunities for young people in rural communities.

According to him, the industry could generate about 250,000 direct jobs and another 750,000 indirect jobs across the sugar value chain in about 12 states.

“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.

He explained that, unlike many industries concentrated in urban centres, sugar production naturally creates employment opportunities in rural areas where economic activity is often limited.

“The beauty of it is that these are rural jobs, not city jobs,” he added.

Bakrin also linked the growth of sugar estates to improved security, arguing that large-scale agricultural and industrial projects can reduce youth unemployment and limit exposure to criminal activity.

“When you have sugar projects, you do not have unrest or any security challenge because you create so many jobs for the youths,” he said.

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Beyond employment, the NSDC boss said the sugar sector could also contribute to Nigeria’s energy supply through embedded power generation systems used within sugar estates.

According to him, most modern sugar estates generate their own electricity independently of the national grid and often produce excess energy that can be supplied externally.

“A sugar estate provides its own power; it does not rely on the national grid. As a matter of fact, it contributes to the national grid,” Bakrin stated.

“A sugar estate consumes only about 50 percent of the energy it produces, while the rest can be injected into the national grid. And we are talking about 400 megawatts. That is enough to power at least a small modern city or community.”

The meeting focused largely on the implementation of the Nigeria Sugar Master Plan II (NSMP II), the government-backed strategy aimed at expanding local sugar production, reducing import dependence, and attracting large-scale investment into the sector.

Nigeria currently spends over US$1 billion annually importing sugar, a figure Bakrin said could instead be redirected into domestic investment, job creation, infrastructure, and industrial development if local production capacity improves.

He disclosed that Nigeria has more than one million hectares of land suitable for sugar cultivation, although only around 200,000 hectares would be required for the country to achieve sugar self-sufficiency.

According to him, long-term success in the sector depends heavily on policy consistency and strong enforcement mechanisms capable of giving investors confidence.

Bakrin described the Nigeria Customs Service as one of the most critical institutions in achieving the goals of the sugar master plan, particularly around quota administration, anti-smuggling operations, import regulation, and enforcement of fiscal incentives.

Investors planning to commit billions of dollars into sugar projects, he noted, need assurance that government policies and approved incentives will be implemented transparently and consistently.

Responding, the Comptroller-General of Customs, Bashir Adeniyi, expressed support for the sector’s transformation agenda, describing the sugar industry’s economic potential as significant for Nigeria’s broader development 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 said.

He assured the NSDC of the Customs Service’s readiness to strengthen collaboration around intelligence sharing, import data transparency, quota enforcement, and anti-smuggling efforts to support implementation of the NSMP II.

Both agencies also agreed to deepen cooperation in key areas, including market stability, quota allocation, sugar incentives implementation, and operational enforcement.

For Nigeria, the conversation around sugar is increasingly becoming bigger than food production alone. Policymakers now see the sector as part of a wider industrialisation strategy capable of supporting agriculture, manufacturing, power generation, rural development, and employment simultaneously.

Meiza Nigeria