The Chairman of Shine Bridge Global Inc. (SBG), Dr. Tony Bello, has called for increased support for entrepreneurs, scientists, and young people driving innovation and value addition in Nigeria’s cassava industry.
Bello made the appeal in a statement on Saturday, reacting to the announcement of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Economics, which highlighted the role of sustained innovation in promoting economic prosperity.
The statement, made available to journalists on Monday, noted that the 2025 Nobel Prize was awarded to economists Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion, and Peter Howitt for their groundbreaking work on innovation and economic growth.
According to Bello, the laureates’ research demonstrates that societies advance only when scientific knowledge aligns with openness to change, supported by structures that manage creative destruction.
He, however, disagreed with recent media reports claiming that sectors such as palm oil, textiles, and cassava have failed to keep pace with global innovation trends.
Bello emphasized that innovation in Nigeria’s cassava sector is already underway but requires scaling through public-private partnerships, diaspora investment, knowledge exchange, and strategic procurement policies that favor locally produced food ingredients.
“There is a quiet revolution happening in Nigeria’s cassava industry, led by Shine Bridge Global through the Cassava Kingdom Movement. In recent years, cassava industrialization in Nigeria has shifted from subsistence to science,” he said.
He added that through the development of functional food ingredients such as MolliJel and CassaPro, SBG is demonstrating that cassava is no longer just a rural staple but a scalable input for global food and consumer goods markets.
Bello also highlighted innovative cassava-based products like RootiFufu, RootiBake, RootiSnacks, and RootiMee, which are tangible outcomes of sustained research and development, pilot trials, co-manufacturing hubs, and diaspora-led investments.
He explained that SBG and its partners are working to establish physico-chemical specifications, industrial standards, and quality systems for cassava derivatives to ensure competitiveness in global markets.
“Our goal is not to preserve garri and fufu as relics of tradition; it is to engineer them for consistency, performance, and global competitiveness,” Bello said.
He concluded: “As the Nobel laureates have reminded us, innovation requires deliberate action. Cassava industrialization is becoming Nigeria’s proving ground. We must move beyond diagnosis to deployment and celebrate the entrepreneurs, scientists, and youth who are redefining what is possible from Nigeria’s most humble root.”
