The Federal Government’s decision to halt the export of unprocessed shea nuts is a long overdue corrective against Nigeria’s economic self-sabotage.
For decades, successive administrations have repeated lofty pledges to “diversify the economy” while clinging to a ruinous pattern: shipping raw commodities cheaply and buying back finished products at steep prices. This cycle has drained wealth, denied jobs, and entrenched dependency, even as the country sits on abundant resources.
From Brazil, President Bola Tinubu ordered a “temporary” suspension of raw shea exports, with Vice President Kashim Shettima delivering the message in Abuja. He rightly condemned the practice as a betrayal of national interest. Nigeria produces about 40 per cent of the world’s shea nuts yet captures only one per cent of the $6.5 billion global market. The reason is depressingly simple: foreign middlemen, often Chinese and other expatriates, buy shea in baskets from rural women and ship it out raw. What could be a source of prosperity instead yields scraps.
This arrangement deprives Nigeria of foreign exchange, weakens local industries, and prolongs rural poverty. Worse, it continues a colonial-era model of resource exploitation without value addition. With proper investment in processing, Nigeria could earn at least $300 million annually in the short term and expand that figure tenfold within a few years.
However, a ban on its own is not enough. The National Assembly should enact legislation mandating that no strategic commodity leaves Nigeria without a defined level of processing. A threshold of 30 per cent local processing before export, enforced by the Raw Materials Research and Development Council, would be a practical start. Penalties for defaulting exporters must go beyond a token surcharge to include licence withdrawal and stiffer sanctions.
Other countries have long recognised this principle. Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire safeguard their cocoa industries with value addition policies, while Indonesia has done the same with palm oil. Nigeria cannot afford to remain the outlier, repeating mistakes that undermine its competitiveness.
The rhetoric of “diversification” is older than many of today’s policymakers. From General Yakubu Gowon’s oil-era promises to Muhammadu Buhari’s unfulfilled pledges, successive governments have struggled to move beyond slogans. Tinubu’s administration must not slip into the same pattern of ad hoc bans and speeches. A coherent framework is required, one that identifies commodities where Nigeria holds comparative advantage, such as shea, cashew, cocoa, sesame, hibiscus, and solid minerals, and links them to a broader industrialisation strategy. The National Economic Council, chaired by the Vice President, should drive this agenda with urgency.
The value addition conversation is not about revenue alone. It is about building security and social stability. Cottage industries and grassroots processing plants provide jobs, anchor rural economies, and reduce the drift of young people into cities or, worse, into the ranks of insurgents and criminal gangs. A government serious about tackling insecurity must see economic empowerment in rural communities as a frontline strategy.
The truth is stark: Nigeria exports raw shea, cocoa, and sesame while importing cosmetics, chocolates, and processed foods made from its own produce. The country is the sixth-largest oil producer in the world, yet it imports petrol. This is economic dependence dressed as policy. By exporting raw shea, we send jobs abroad while our people are left idle. By importing finished goods, we entrench poverty.
The suspension of raw shea exports offers a window for change, but that window will close quickly unless the government follows through with enforceable laws, targeted investment, and unwavering political will. Nigeria must end the cycle of exporting poverty and importing dependence. Only then can resources like shea become a true engine of prosperity rather than another chapter in the country’s tale of squandered wealth.