The National Sugar Development Council has mobilised a $1 billion investment pipeline to accelerate Nigeria’s drive towards sugar self-sufficiency, even as it strengthens enforcement under the Backward Integration Programme.

Nairametrics reported that the Executive Secretary/CEO of NSDC, Mr. Kamar Bakrin, disclosed this when he received members of the Abuja Chapter of the Chartered Institute of Directors, CIoD, at the Council’s headquarters in Abuja.

Bakrin said: “Nigeria consumes about 1.8 million metric tonnes of sugar annually, with an estimated one billion dollars flowing each year to foreign producers.”

He said the Council was determined to reverse the trend by retaining the value of Nigeria’s sugar market within the domestic economy.

“This is not a deficit to be lamented, but a ready-made domestic market waiting to be recaptured by Nigerian producers,” Bakrin said, adding that the Nigeria Sugar Master Plan, NSMP, 2.0 was designed to retain the value “in the form of jobs, rural incomes, foreign exchange savings and industrial capacity.”

On the persistent challenges in the sector, he said: “We don’t lack policy. What we have struggled with is world-class execution.”

According to him, “the gap is not a farming problem but a governance problem — and therefore one that serious, well-run institutions can fix.”

Bakrin described NSMP 2.0 as an “acceleration mandate” aimed at compressing Nigeria’s path to self-sufficiency, with a target of producing about two million metric tonnes of sugar locally.

He said: “We have been blessed with a crop that is one of the most generous God has ever made. From sugarcane you can get sugar, you can get ethanol, you can get animal feed, you can produce power.”

“Our job is to build a bio-industrial ecosystem around it — this is not just about producing a commodity,” he added.

On financing, Bakrin said: “Capital is available — what has been missing is a pipeline of bankable projects capable of absorbing it.”

He said the N10 billion Sugar Project Acceleration Fund, established with the Bank of Industry, would finance feasibility studies and project preparation, while the $1 billion EPC-plus-finance agreement with SINOMACH of China would provide a channel for construction and financing.

On enforcement, he said: “The Backward Integration Programme has been rebuilt around four principles — qualify, reward, verify and enforce.”

He added that satellite imagery and field inspections would replace self-reporting with objective, data-driven verification of sugar production activities.

Bakrin also said sugar estates would reserve land for outgrowers and invest in host communities through employment and infrastructure, making rural prosperity a core component of NSMP 2.0.