Four countries, Nigeria, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, and Cameroon have formed an alliance that aims to end the exports of raw cocoa beans.
Under the pact, tagged the Abuja Declaration, the nations are aiming to negotiate with international cocoa buyers as a single bloc controlling about 75 per cent of global production.
The declaration was signed on Tuesday at the 2026 cocoa value addition summit in Abuja.
At the event, governments, financiers and industry players unveiled plans to shift Africa from exporting raw cocoa beans to processing and branding finished products.
President Bola Tinubu, represented by Abubakar Kyari, the minister of agriculture and food security, said Nigeria would end the practice of exporting raw cocoa while importing finished chocolate products.
“Nigeria will no longer export raw beans while importing finished value,” the president said.
“We will grind our beans at home, we will press our butter at home, we will make our chocolate at home, brand it at home and sell it to the world on our own terms.”
Tinubu said investors are building a 70,000-tonne cocoa processing facility in Sagamu, Ogun state, which he described as the largest in the country’s history.
He said Nigeria’s installed cocoa grinding capacity now exceeds 120,000 tonnes annually.
The president noted that the Bank of Industry (BOI), which co-convened the summit, has funding available for viable cocoa projects.
Also speaking, Olasupo Olusi, BOI’s managing director, said although Nigeria produces more than 300,000 tonnes of cocoa annually, only about 50,000 tonnes of its installed grinding capacity is currently utilised.
Olusi said BOI disbursed over N164 billion to more than 3,500 agro-processing businesses in 2025 and secured a €60 million credit facility from the European Investment Bank to support cocoa value addition.
He said the bank would establish dedicated financing windows for cocoa processing, ingredient manufacturing, packaging, and chocolate production.
“We are not approaching cocoa as a lending programme; we are building an industrial ecosystem,” Olusi said.
