President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria was in Lagos on Tuesday, the commercial capital of Nigeria for the launch of what experts have called the largest fertilizer plant in Africa owned by Africa’s richest man, and President/Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote.

According to the official website of the plant, Dangote Fertiliser Plant is Africa’s largest Granulated Urea Fertiliser complex. The plant occupies 500 hectares of land in Lekki Free Trade Zone, Lagos Nigeria. It was built at a cost of $2.5 Billion.

Also at the inauguration of the $2.5 billion project were dignitaries including Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-olu, Central Bank of Nigeria Governor Godwin Emefiele, and Nigeria’s Minister of Trade and Investment Niyi Adebayo.

With food being a basic necessity of life and growing food shortage across the world that has been further enhanced by the ongoing Ukraine/Russia war, the use of fertilizers is central to sustainable productivity in the agriculture sector as the shortage of fertilizers has contributed to the worsening food crisis with about 250 million people going to bed hungry and Africa spending more than $35 billion on food imports annually as it continues to grapple with low agricultural productivity.

The launch of the Dangote plant is timely as many African soils are unable to supply crops with the nutrients they need due to infertility and degradation that has stemmed from inappropriate land-use practices over several centuries.

Beyond serving the Nigeria and Africa fertilizer market, the plant is said to be established to produce 3 million metric tonnes per annum of urea fertilizer in phase 1 which is above Nigeria’s current level of fertilizer consumption in the country which is 1.5 million metric tonnes.

While delivering his speech shortly after the mega project was commissioned, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, said that the products from its newly commissioned fertilizer plant are already in the African market as well as the United States, Brazil, India and Mexico.

If things turned as they seem, the new fertilizer plant should mean a major leap in Nigeria’s agriculture sector with President Muhammadu Buhari’s many agric-based initiatives. However, the peculiarity of Nigeria informs that enthusiasm should be with caution. Amidst the many challenges of industrialization in Nigeria, fingers are crossed on the efficiency of the plant, hopefully, it does not go the way of the Dangote tomatoes processing factory that has repeatedly shut down operation.