The inability of Nigeria to feed itself in the face of rising population and over $6.7 trillion natural resources may increase the food import burden to $110 billion in the next two years, the President of African Development Bank Group (AfDB), Dr Akinwumi Adesina, said yesterday.

Barley three months after Nigeria through the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited took a $3 billion crude-backed loan from the African Export–Import Bank, Adesina, who spoke at the Public Lecture marking The Guardian’s 40th Anniversary, kicked against such debts, saying they remained non-transparent, expensive and would not help Africa.
 
Amidst rising closure of factories across Nigeria and suffocating small businesses, Adesina also said Nigeria and Africa must begin to think more strategically to lift its people out of extreme poverty. He attributed the widespread poverty to Africa’s export of raw materials, which he described as “the door to poverty”. The desired prosperity, he said, could only come through value addition and industrialisation.  
  
Although he noted that AfDB has invested over $8 billion in agriculture over the past seven years, which has improved food security for 250 million people, over 283 million people still go hungry to beds on the continent.
 
Already, the United Nations said 37 per cent of children or six million children are stunted (chronically malnourished or low height for their age).Adesina insisted that the continent must do more than simply produce more food and agricultural commodities, stressing that Africa, which accounts for 65 per cent of the production of cocoa, receives only two per cent of the $120 billion chocolate industry.
  
“While African farmers languish in poverty, chocolate processors smile to the bank. One is condemned to penury and the other creates wealth,” he said.The ex-agriculture minister, while rejecting the notion that countries become poor when they have natural resources, said the so-called resource curse has not applied to Saudi Arabia, Qatar or Norway.
 
“These are all nations that are rich in natural resources that have served them well. Why should it be different for Africa’s resource-rich states? It all comes down to governance, transparency, accountability and the sound management of our natural resources.

“If we manage our natural resources well, Africa has no reason to be poor. We have $6.2 trillion in natural resources. So how in the world are we still poor? We simply need to pull up our socks, stamp out corruption, and manage our resources in the interest of our countries and our people,” he said.
 
Adesina said while Africa accounts for 70 per cent of the global reserves of platinum, 52 per cent of cobalt and 48 per cent of manganese with the Democratic Republic of Congo alone accounting for 70 per cent of global cobalt, China benefits from refining much of the strategic minerals.
 
“As the world transitions into renewable energy sources, Africa has the largest sources of solar resources potential in the world. The renewable energy revolution will depend on these critical metals for the manufacturing of wind turbines, solar panels, battery energy storage systems and electric vehicles.
  
“There will be so much money to be made, as the size of electric vehicles market is estimated to rise from $7 trillion currently to $57 trillion by 2050, with projections showing a 500 per cent increase in demand for cobalt, graphite and lithium in the next two years,” Adesina said. He said the continent must strategically position itself in this new industry dynamics of production of Electric Vehicles (EV) as there would be so much money to be made from the ecosystem in the coming years.
 
According to him, the size of the EV market is estimated to rise from $7 trillion currently to $57 trillion by 2050, with projections showing a 500 per cent increase in demand for cobalt, graphite and lithium in the next two years.
 
A study by Bloomberg NEF, he said, indicates that manufacturing lithium-ion precursor batteries will be three times less expensive in the Democratic Republic of Congo than in the U.S., Poland, and China. He said Africa should not simply be an exporter of these critical minerals. Rather, Africa must develop its value chains to process, add value, and become well integrated into global supply chains.
 
He said while geopolitical issues and interests drive international engagements on critical metals, Africa should strategically position itself to build its industrial manufacturing capabilities with infrastructure, skills, knowledge and competencies, and investment partnerships.
 
He noted that Africa’s green metals must become Africa’s green wealth, while Africa will gain respect when it becomes an important player in global manufacturing. Today, Africa accounts for just three per cent of global manufacturing, he said, stressing that industrialisation is the fastest way to wealth.

“And here, once again, permit me to focus on Nigeria especially. Nigeria must unleash an industrial revolution on this continent. The day Nigeria wakes up and becomes a lion king; everything will change for its people and Africa,” he noted.  Adesina regretted that 515 million Africans live in extreme poverty, stating that the number hasn’t improved in recent times,

“By tackling poverty, I do not mean ‘poverty alleviation’ because this is a term that I reject in its entirety. I do not believe in ‘poverty alleviation’. South Korea moved from a GDP per capita of $350 in the 1960s to approximately $33,000 in 2023. That is the kind of quantum leap that we need, rather than attempt to ‘alleviate’ poverty,” he noted.

Regretting that Nigeria has the largest share of its population currently living below extreme poverty in Africa, he pointed out that mismanagement of the continent’s natural resources continues to impoverish its inhabitants.

“I have urged African governments to stop securing loans backed by their natural resources. Natural resource-backed loans are non-transparent. They are expensive, and they make debt resolution difficult. If the trend continues, it will be a disaster for Africa,” the guest speaker said.

Pointing out that other resource-rich countries are thriving due to good governance, transparency, accountability and sound management of natural resources, he wondered why it is the other way round for Nigeria and other African nations.

We must pull up our socks, stamp out corruption and manage our resources in the interest of our countries and our people, he told the audience. Adesina went on to add that despite the continent having 65 per cent of uncultivated arable land, the continent still cannot feed itself, with her food import bill hitting $85 billion in 2012 and expected to surpass $110 billion by 2025, with 283 million people going to bed hungry every year. Adding that beyond producing more food and exporting raw materials, the continent must control the export of value-added products, as that is the highway to wealth. He said focusing on raw commodities export alone will only lead to more poverty.

“Africa must turn itself into a global powerhouse in food and agriculture. That is why the bank and its partners have provided $1.6 billion for the development of special agro-industrial processing zones to support private sector processing and value addition to commodities in 25 zones across 15 countries. Africa must turn the sweat of its farmers into wealth,” he insisted.

He went on to add that Africa must strategically position itself to build its industrial manufacturing capabilities with infrastructure, skills, knowledge and competencies as well as investment partnerships.

“Africa accounts for just three per cent of global manufacturing. Industrialisation is the fastest way to wealth. Nigeria must unleash an industrial revolution on this continent. Malaysia and Vietnam have used aggressive horizontal and vertical diversification of industrial production to move from low-value to high-value market products, and so, while the per capita export value for Malaysia is $7,100 and $3,600 for Vietnam, it is only $160 for Nigeria.”

He said while the other two nations have long moved into global manufacturing growth and creating wealth and jobs for themselves; Nigeria has remained in survival mode, unable to replace its imports of petroleum products, despite being one of the largest exporters of crude oil in the world. Urging the current administration to revive Nigeria’s manufacturing sector, he said the country reaching its full potential is underpinned by a strong manufacturing base. “We must implement the right policies, make the right investments, get our infrastructure in order, and improve logistics and financing frameworks.

Reiterating that Africa will earn respect when it can mobilise financing for its development, he said the continent’s high debt levels are of great concern as the debt load is now heavier as debt service payments have been increasing as global interest rates rise to tame global inflation. “Sub-Saharan Africa’s debt ratio has doubled in just a decade and reached 60 per cent of total GDP in 2022. African countries now spend on average 7.6 per cent of their GDP to service debt,” he said.

As the Conference of Parties kick starts in the United Arab Emirates, Adesina said Africa’s wealth is being eroded at a frenetic pace by climate change, with $7-15 billion in yearly losses.

According to him, the estimate would rise to $50 billion a year by 2030 when the developed world grew their economies, created massive wealth and jobs and raised living standards from the Industrial Revolution.

Speaking on the lack of access to electricity, Adesina said Africa would gain respect when it can provide universal electricity access to all its people and drop the garb of being known as the “dark continent.”
 
He said despite the growth in renewable energy, Africa received just two per cent of the $3 trillion of global investments in renewable energy in the past two decades, and accounts for only three per cent of all jobs created in renewable energy.

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