The Senior Special Adviser to the President on Industrialisation at the African Development Bank, Prof. Banji Oyelaran-Oyeyinka, has called on industry leaders and the government to take key steps to unlock the full potential of cassava as an industrial commodity.
Speaking at the National Conference of Industrial Cassava Stakeholders Association of Nigeria in Lagos recently, Oyelaran-Oyeyinka, stated that Nigeria’s cassava sector could become a global leader with the right investment and strategic focus.
Oyelaran-Oyeyinka in a statement made available to The PUNCH on Monday pointed out that while Nigeria was the world’s largest producer of cassava, accounting for 21.06 per cent of global production, the country lagged in deriving value from the crop.
“Despite our leadership in cassava production, Nigeria earns less than one per cent in cassava/derivatives exports,” he said, noting that 90 per cent of the nation’s cassava was consumed domestically without much value addition.
Oyelaran-Oyeyinka argued that with cassava derivatives, like starch, ethanol, pellets, and flour, in high demand across global industries, ranging from pharmaceuticals to textiles, Nigeria must transition from being a raw commodity exporter to a value-added manufacturing hub.
“The transformation from an agrarian economy to industrial development is long overdue for Nigeria,” the professor asserted.
He highlighted that no country has achieved sustainable economic growth without industrialisation, referencing the industrial revolutions of Europe and, more recently, Asia.
“The West achieved its industrial revolution over two centuries ago, yet we are still struggling to make the transition,” he added.
Oyelaran-Oyeyinka urged the Nigerian government and industry players to invest in technology, innovation, and human capital, saying, “We need to prioritise the right types of human capital that solve immediate and long-term challenges. This means not just research and development but building capabilities that directly impact local firms and farmers.”
He explained that as a country evolves in building its technological capabilities gains in export capacity.
“One of the hallmarks of a country’s industrial capacity is its competitiveness in the global economy is a country’s ability to produce and export manufactured goods, which can increase. The demand for capital goods to produce better quality products creates demand for more advanced technological expertise to support economic development. This can be sourced through foreign investment which can both capital and technical expertise.”
He narrated that South Korea moved from a Low-Income poverty-ravaged country, to middle-income by 1994, saying it successfully transited the middle-income trap through a combination of three factors, manufacturing production capacity, exports followed by R&D.
“South Korea is the only country apart from Israel, that spends more than four percent of GDP on R&D. However, it attained this 2 percent of GDP in R&D spending in 1994 only after it crossed the $10,000 per capita GDP threshold. More importantly, in 2020, South Korean corporate R&D accounted for 80 percent of the country’s total R&D spending as a share of GDP, while the shares of R&D spending by the government and higher education were around 12 percent and 9 percent, respectively,” he said.
Oyelaran-Oyebanji added that these investments enabled South Korea to become a global player in semiconductors, mobile phones, electric vehicle batteries, automobiles, and other premium consumer goods.
He maintained that “Today, South Korea is the world’s tenth-largest economy, and it ranked as the fifth-leading country for manufacturing output in 2015t. Building relevant Capacities is based on Income level and stage of development.
This should be our aspiration as a country. Let us raise our capability and turn cassava into a valuable input in industrial production. We have been left behind too long. Let us give ourselves a second chance to achieve industrialisation.”
He maintained that industrialisation of necessity required the development of new infrastructure, such as roads, ports, and power plants, which could improve access to markets and support economic growth.