Determined to make Nigeria a major food processing hub in Africa, plans are currently underway to establish a 360 agro-products processing complex in Onicha-Ugbo in Delta State.

Known as Tingo Foods Processing Plant, after completion, it will process mineral water, fizzy drinks, juice, chocolate, biscuits, tea, cashew milk, vegetable oil, beans, rice, tomato paste, coffee, noodles, spaghetti, spices, cassava and yam.

Founder and former CEO, Tingo Group, Dozy Mmobuosi, led a team of personalities including Edo State Deputy Governor, Philip Shaibu; President of All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Dr Farouk Mudi, and other prominent people across the country, on an inspection tour of the plant site located at Onicha-Ugbo, Aniocha north local government area, Delta state.

Mmobuosi who said he was developing the industrial real estate on his family’s property to process food, says he expects southern and northern Nigeria to partner to begin to process food for local consumption and export for Nigeria to become a producing country.

He said Tingo Foods, through its parent company, Tingo Group, will provide machinery for the food processing but for now, would undertake the provision of machinery/equipment for food processing on the land owned by the Dozy Mmobuosi Family (Mmobuosi Holdings) and leased to Tingo Foods for two decades. According to him, the plant can store 300, 000 tonnes of grain reserves.

On direct jobs, he said over 12,000 workers will be engaged when the first phase is completed. When completed he said, the plant would sit on 50 hectares. Promising to deliver phase one in December this year, he said the final phase will come a year later. “Most of the equipment has been procured and once they arrive, they will be assembled. We are already in partnership with states in northern Nigeria that will supplement what we are going to have here. We want to begin to process coffee, tea and other beverages.”

On power generation, he revealed he has procured 11.6 megawatt of power from a gas turbine which will be leaving Spain soon, saying solar was considered initially but was discovered to be unsustainable in supporting all the machinery.

“We will also complement it with power generators until the national power is stable, then we can depend on the grid,” he said.

Mmobuosi revealed he has been expanding the roads on his own but needs the state government and others to step in, especially regarding security.

He said: “We need the police, military and others for food security. This is about saving our existence, we are not going to be eating sand, we need food and this is a way to go. This project benefits northern and southern Nigeria. We will be opening a rice mill in Niger State and have just taken over a major mill. We own a 3000-hectare farm there as well and are looking to work with smallholder farmers to ensure year-round production as most of the raw foods will come from northern Nigeria,”

Also speaking, Edo State Deputy Governor, Philip Shaibu, said Nigeria urgently needs to become a productive economy and slowly pivot from being a solely-importing economy. He said local manufacturing will greatly reduce the pressure on the Naira and export of goods will also help boost foreign exchange earnings. Regretting that exports have dwindled significantly over the years, he said it is mostly due to a lack of good processing facilities.

“We need a cluster of farms that will have processing factories, the latter is very important because, without them, food preservation and security will remain a mirage. With processing factories like these, no food will rot away, and we can strengthen our export capabilities as one food item can be processed for multiple purposes. We have been clamouring that the country needs to move from consumption alone to production and this is a great step in that direction.

“We must deal with the issue of insecurity and guarantee food security for our people because a hungry man is an angry man. We must consciously put all our resources, time and energy into production and getting enough food for our people. Most of the items that we now import are things that can be grown or done locally here. Farming is unattractive in terms of the way people see it in Nigeria now, especially the small-scale farmers and we must change this mindset, attract younger ones to it, cluster the farms, tackle insecurity and get processing companies to follow,” he said.

Taking stakeholders around the factory site, the Chief Executive Officer of the construction company, Standites Nig. Limited, Tunji Rhema Moyero, revealed that the country has been dealing with a major food crisis, especially in the last few months that warranted the president to declare a state of emergency on food.

“This is why a project like this is needed. We are struggling with food production and supply and facilities like this are needed to provide a solution to this problem.”

President of the All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Dr Farouk Mudi, disclosed that owing to Mmobuosi’s support to farmers nationwide, farmers are ready to give the plant massive encouragement, especially rice farmers.

“We will house the raw materials for the farmers which would serve as collateral and then we give out 50 per cent of it. The plant therefore becomes the first port of offer, and we will be able to regulate pricing. Everybody in Nigeria and even other parts of Africa will come here to process. We will no longer take raw materials abroad for processing and become an exporter of finished produce,” he said.