A video circulating on X has drawn renewed attention to Dangote Group's rice business, showing what appears to be active rice processing at one of its facilities more than a decade after the project was first announced.
The footage comes 12 years after Africa's richest industrialist, Aliko Dangote, committed to spending $1 billion on commercial rice farming and processing across Nigeria
The project was designed to cut the country's reliance on imported rice and build a large-scale domestic supply chain.
Dangote's $1 billion rice investment
Dangote Group signed a memorandum of understanding with the Federal Government in August 2014 to invest $1 billion in integrated rice farming and milling across states including Jigawa, Kebbi, Niger, Kwara and Edo.
Two years later, the company launched an 8,000-hectare rice outgrower scheme in Hadejia, Jigawa State, supplying participating farmers with improved seeds, fertilisers and technical support, and committing to buy their harvested paddy for processing.
By February 2017, the outgrower scheme had been expanded to 25,000 hectares across 14 states. The company set a target of 225,000 metric tonnes of milled rice by the end of that year, with an ambition of reaching one million tonnes annually.
Years of delays before tangible progress
Construction announcements followed over several years without matching production results. Dangote laid the foundation for a processing plant in Hadin, Kaugama Local Government Area of Jigawa State, in March 2018. The facility was initially designed to handle 16 tonnes of paddy per hour.
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