Kwara State is set to take centre stage in Nigeria’s shea industry as Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq prepares to commission a 50-tonne shea butter processing factory in Kaiama, the second largest in the country and the biggest owned by a state government.
The move comes shortly after President Bola Tinubu announced a ban on the export of raw shea butter, a policy designed to boost local production, encourage value addition, and retain wealth within producing communities.
Welcoming the presidential directive, Governor AbdulRazaq described it as a timely intervention that will strengthen the shea value chain, improve product quality, and create thousands of jobs.
“The presidential directive will spur local production and value addition. Locating the factory within Kaiama puts the people at the centre of shea production and ensures local ownership of benefits such as job creation, reduced post-harvest losses, and value retention in the community,” the governor said in a statement on Tuesday.
The factory, a flagship project of the AbdulRazaq administration, is expected to stimulate economic activities in Kwara North, where women farmers and pickers dominate shea nut collection. By integrating raw material sourcing, processing, and market access, the project will serve as a model of backward and forward integration in the sector.
Kwara and Niger States remain the heartlands of shea nut trees in Nigeria, with Kwara North alone credited with over 250,000 naturally occurring trees spread across 6,000 hectares of land.
