Determined to make Nigeria a productive nation, plans are currently ongoing to establish a multi-billion naira foods processing plant in Delta state.
Known as Tingo Foods Processing Plant, after completion will process food products such as mineral water, fizzy drinks, juice, chocolate, biscuits, tea, cashew milk, vegetable oil, beans, rice, tomato paste, coffee, noodles, spaghetti, spices, cassava and yam.
Dozy Mmobuosi, founder and former CEO of Tingo Group, (Tingo food, mobile and media) led a team of personalities including Deputy Governor, Edo state, Comrade Philip Shaibu; President, All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Dr Farouk Mudi, and other prominent people across the country on an inspection tour of the plant site on Thursday in Onicha-Ugbo, Aniocha north local government area, Delta state.
Mmobuosi who said he was developing the industrial real estate on his property and equally lease to Tingo Foods and any other party, only for the purpose of processing food, assured he expects southern Nigeria to partner with northern Nigeria to begin to process food for local consumption and for export in order for Nigeria to become a producing country.
He said Tingo Foods, through its parent company, Tingo Group, is to provide machinery for the food processing but in the meantime would undertake the provision of machinery/equipment for food processing on the land owned by the Dozy Mmobuosi Family (Mmobuosi Holdings) and lease to Tingo Foods for 20 years.
According to the agri-tech entrepreneur, the plant has capacity for storage of 300K tonnes of grain reserve and storage and encouragement to begin to take food security seriously.
On direct jobs, he assured that over 12,000 workers will be engaged when the first phase is completed.
“You know the effect. We are going to deliver phase one in December and then the final phase is done a year later. Most of the equipment has been procured, once this is done we begin to fix them.
“As you know most of them are going to be coupled when they finally arrive, most of them are around as we speak. We are already in partnership with the states in northern Nigeria, that will supplement what we are going to have here. We want to begin to process Nigeria coffee, tea and others.
“This is my first visit to the site despite owning it. This is my first visit to Nigeria in six years, l am staying over to communicate with governments across the country, traditional rulers and other stakeholders on the way forward.
On the issue of power generation, he revealed he has procured 11.6 megawatt of power gas turbine which will be leaving Spain very shortly, saying initially he was considering solar but discovered it was not sustainable. “We shall also complement it with power generators until Nigeria is stable enough to generate power, then we can depend on the country”.
On roads and security, Mmobuosi revealed he has been expanding the roads but would need the state government and others to see how they can support, even with security.
“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. Majority of the raw foods will come from northern Nigeria. Southern Nigeria will equally benefit in the overall ecosystem.
“There is the benefit of local content and security. If we look back at how Shell and Chevron managed relationships with communities in southern Nigeria, we will find answers here. Imagine Tingo being run by a Western CEO, it would have been harder to actualise this project.
“I am available to support the vision of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the government to actualise this. I am not a politician; this is strictly business and a service to society.
Corroborating, Hon Philip Shaibu, Edo State Deputy Governor, disclosed that Nigeria needed to become a productive economy, saying the only way we can deal with the issue of forex is for us to also export, not just an importer of goods and services.
According to him, more companies like this will help to deal with the issue of food scarcity and the issue of production we are experiencing in this country
“We have to deal with the issue of insecurity and must 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.
“Plenty of the items that we now import are things that are found locally here and the company is the way forward in terms of processing. Farming is unattractive in terms of the way people perceive farming in Nigeria, especially the small scale farmers.
“We see farmers as hungry and poor, rather than where farmers are the richest guys. Go to Texas, farmers are the richest and the big boys. Now we have to create the setting to attract the younger ones to farm, cluster these farms, deal with the issue of insecurity in Nigeria and also get processing companies to follow.
“This is a welcome development and a good thing for Delta state and I also want the Delta state government to support it in terms of infrastructure. I am so happy and excited to be part of this project and I want others to partner and join in this to fund it sufficiently in terms of infrastructure and human capital” Shaibu advised.
Contributing, president, 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.
According to him, there will be production and e-wire housing finance whereby all the 774 LGAs in Nigeria will have three warehouses each and each state one.
“We warehouse the raw materials for the farmers. The raw materials become collateral. We give out 50 per cent of it. The plant therefore becomes the first offer and we shall be able to control the price.
“Everybody in Nigeria, even Africa will start coming to process. We shall no longer take our raw materials abroad for processing and then put an end to the peanuts they pay back to us in dollars.
To show their joy and appreciation, the community through the royal father of Onicha- Ugbo Kingdom, HRM Obi Victor Chukwunaleze bestowed a traditional title, “Okpala” on Mmobuosi to encourage him in the task, not to be distracted and offered prayers to him for long life and prosperity.
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