Kolanuts symbolise everything that is wrong with Nigeria and how Tinubu deals with this crop will provide an insight into how he thinks

Ayo Akinfe

[1] Nigeria is the world’s largest kolanut producer accounting for about 54% of global output. We produce about 150,000 tonnes of kolanuts annually, which sells for $3,800 a tonne. Our export earnings from kolanuts can only be described as pathetic and derisory

[2] In 2023, wine distillers are increasingly using kolanuts in their red wine. Back in 2020 the global red wine market size was valued at $182bn and this is projected grow to $278.5bn by 2028. We’re I in President Tinubu’s shoes, I have my eyes firmly on this kind of revenue

[3] In Igboland, there is a saying that: "He who brings the kolanut brings life." In pre-crude oil Igboland, kolanut production was widespread but alas, we have not got round to producing kolanuts on an industrial scale. We simply have not got to grips with the concept of commercial farming

[4] Coca Cola derived its name from the kolanut, which it used to flavour its drinks. The soft drinks and confectionary market is an area where billions could be made. President Tinubu needs to sit down with Coca Cola and enter into a deal that makes Nigeria their main global partner

[5] This is where Nigeria has to learn from the West. When anything is important to their economies, they get laws passed describing them as environmentally friendly and compulsory. If we could get the United Nations, Wef, Unesco, Unicef, the World Health Organisation, etc to demand that at the very minimum, every can of Coca Cola must contain 15% kolanuts, Nigeria is sorted. It would be a licence to print money

[6] President Tinubu needs to come up with a unique programme that makes Nigeria’s tropical rain forest the world’s largest kolanut producing and processing region. This area that stretches from Cross River to Lagos to Taraba states should be littered with kolanut plantations and distilleries processing it into wine as happens in southern France and Italy

[7] Italy is currently the world’s largest wine producer, followed by France, Spain, Germany, the US, Australia, China, Argentina, South Africa and Chile. With our dominance of kolanut production, that should not be the case. Nigeria should easily be the biggest producer of red wine on the planet

[8] Africa as a continent only accounts for 4% of global trade and more shockingly only accounts for $2.1trn of the world’s $80trn gross domestic product (GDP). How can you have 18% of the world’s population but just 4% of trade, 2.6% of GDP and 1% of manufacturing. That is simply not sustainable and Nigeria needs to lead the charge to change this

[9] John Pemberton, the pharmacist who started Coca Cola, decided to use his pharmaceutical skills to develop a cure for his morphine addiction, so he started experimenting with various plants, including kolanuts. In 1866, he started selling an alcoholic drink named Pemberton’s French Wine Coca and that is how it all began. Today, Coca Cola no longer has any kolanuts in it as it made up of artificial and synthetic ingredients but we need to change this. Our argument should be it is unorganic, unhealthy, injurious to human life, environmentally unfriendly and polluting, etc to use artificial products in Coca Cola. If we can win that argument, poverty will be banished in Nigeria overnight

[10] If President Tinubu can get the world’s wine distillers and Coca Cola to start using Nigerian kolanuts in their products, our insane dependency on crude oil will end overnight. All we then have to do is expand production and then woo investors to open processing facilities in Nigeria