I will once again appeal to Nigeria’s billionaire pastorprueners to pool their resources together and float a breakfast cereal company. Our economy is going nowhere without their cooperation as no one else has their liquidity

Ayo Akinfe

[1] On August 8, 1898, a gentleman known as Will Kellogg invented a cereal known as Corn Flakes, which has gone on to become the world’s most popular breakfast cereal

[2] Today, Kellogg employs about 33,000 people and has an annual turnover of about $13bn. What does it do? Kellogg converts cereals into breakfast packages. Kellogg now has other products like Pringles, Cheez-It Crackers, Pop Tarts, etc

[3] To make a company like Kellogg succeed, you basically need a steady supply of cheap cereals or root crops that can churn out breakfast packages at low cost. Companies like Weetabix and Quaker Oats operate along the same principles as Kellogg

[4] Nigeria is the world’s largest producer of cassava with an annual output of about 50m tonnes, accounting for around 20% of global production

[5] Nigeria is also the world’s largest yam producer with an annual crop of 40m tonnes, accounting for about 70% of global production

[6] We are also the world’s second largest millet producer with an annual crop of 5m tonnes

[7] Sorghum is the third most important cereal crop grown in the US and the fifth most important cereal crop grown in the world. In 2010, Nigeria was the world's largest producer of grain sorghum. Today, we are the second largest producer with an annual crop of about 7m tonnes

[8] Nigeria is also the world’s largest producer of cocoyams with an output of 3.2mn tonnes

[9] There is nothing whatsoever stopping us from making breakfast cereals from cassava, yam, cocoyam, millet or sorghum. I challenge anyone to tell me why we cannot. Corn flakes are made from maize, Weetabix is made from wheat and Quaker Oats is made from oats. Why is there no tropical alternative to these breakfast cereals? It falls to Nigeria, the pride of the negro, the giant of Africa to fill the void. We cannot run away from our responsibilities and try and pass the duty to some other African country

[10] Alhassan Dantata, Alex Onyema, Innocent Chukwuma, Aliko Dangote, etc, have all rate breeds who have taken the bull by the horn. Were Nigeria a nation of doers, by now, we would have a globally acclaimed cereal brand made out of one of our crops that can compete internationally with Kellogg Corn Flakes, Quaker Oats and Weetabix. Over to you now please our general overseers!