In October 2020, when the Federal Government announced his appointment as Executive Director, Chief Executive Officer, and ED/ CEO for the comatose Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria, CRIN, Dr Patrick Adebola was back on familiar terrain. He had been engaged as a researcher in the institute for more than two decades before, between 1993 – 2005.
He studied Botany at the University of Ilorin, specialising in plant genetics and breeding and advanced plant genetics and breeding at Masters and PhD levels, respectively. He won a postdoctoral fellowship in South Africa and worked in that country for 11 years. He is widely travelled and respected all over the world for his depth. In this interview with Richard Elesho, the technocrat speaks about his stewardship in CRIN. Excerpts
Recently, CRIN marked its 60th anniversary. Will you say the institute has met the dreams of its founding fathers?
Definitely, yes. The primary aim of establishing the institute is to cater for the cocoa sector, and later on, we have other crops added. The objective is to make sure that the institute serves as a one-stop shop for the stakeholders, particularly the small-scale farmers that are cultivating the mandate crops. And that is what it is today.
Over the years, the institute has been involved in raising planting materials for these mandate crops and distributing them to farmers. The institute has developed new varieties of these crops, which are better than what the farmers have on their fields, and we encourage them to come to us to collect the planting materials every year. We would rehabilitate their farms or plant new areas. All the efforts are to ensure the farmers get maximum yield from their plantation and put more money into their pockets.
How is the institute attending to all its mandate crops without neglecting any?
We have over one thousand members of staff. Out of these, one hundred and thirty are scientists who are allocated to each of these mandate crops. You have a major crop, and you have a minor crop. None of the crops is neglected. We have a lot of scientists who major in each of the mandate crops, we also have scientists who minor in each of the crops. That way, no crop is being neglected.
Secondly, when we have resources, they are allocated to all the crops almost equally. All the crops are important. They are all economic crops that can bring money and foreign exchange to the country.
You took over the management of the institute four years ago. What have been the challenges?
Right from the very day that I got appointed, I could see the challenges ahead of me. The institute had been in a state of disrepair and infrastructural deficit. It was also engrossed in huge debt, especially to the staff dating back to as long as 2002. Expectedly, staff morale was very low. The situation demoralized them. They were not motivated to make their contribution to the success of the institute.
Funding was another big challenge. When I took over the institute, the funding was at the lowest level. We hardly had anything to do research. All those challenges were there when I resumed office, and I tried to tackle them one by one.
When you assumed office as ED, CRIN was enmeshed in industrial disputes. How did you resolve them?
Transparency and meaningful engagement. When you are transparent, even the Union leaders will applaud your efforts. If it is one Naira that comes to the institute, I’ll let them know ‘look this is what I’ve got’ and engage them in meaningful discussion on how to use it. I maintain an open-door policy. The staff and unions are carried along in our decision-making process. They see me as one of them. That way, we reduce tensions.
They see me as being open, as being sincere, and not covering anything up, and I also opened my doors for engagement. You don’t need to book an appointment with me if you have a very good plan that you think can benefit the institute. In fact, I gave a standing instruction that all directors and union leaders that want to see me don’t need to fill out a form before they come in.
What have been the major products of research of the institute?
That dates back to about 30 years ago. The institute has been working on not only improving the genetic materials of the mandate crops, but we’re also working on research to utilize the products and by- products of the five mandate crops to do what we call value addition. Today, we have more than 25 value-added products from the 5 mandate crops. For instance, we have choco bread, choco garri, and chocolate. We also have various wines like cashew wine, kola wine, and cocoa wine. We have even gone further to utilize some of the products to do what we call feeds. We have animal feed for snails and poultry. We replaced maize up to 30% with cocoa to formulate the poultry feed. Several other value-added products like cream, pomade, and gin are made from some of our products. We also have the various beverages that we produce from the mandate crops, like cocoa beverages, cola beverages as well as cashew beverages. They are all on the shelf.
Nigeria was a world leader in cocoa production, with its economy almost dependent on agriculture. Today, it is no longer among the three leading cocoa producers. What are the problems?
Well, the majority of the cocoa plantations that we have today are about 50 years old, and those were planted when the country had not discovered oil. Immediately we found oil, it killed the morale of everybody, and the farms were almost abandoned, and not taken care of. Government policies no longer make agriculture an important sector. In those days, Nigeria was second in the world in terms of the volume of the cocoa that we produced. Now, we have neglected the farms because of oil. We have now slipped today to number 4 or 5 in the world, tagging behind Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Indonesia, and Ecuador.
However, the fortune of the plantation and farming have been turned around between last year and this year. Several factors combine to make the price of those commodities above the roof. By this time last year, January 2024, we were selling a ton of cocoa for N1.8 million. Today, a ton of cocoa is N14 million.
The farmers are happy as they are getting more money into their pockets. That is generating a lot of interest in cocoa farming. Every day I receive calls, from people who want to rehabilitate their already abandoned farms, people who want to plant new farms in large hectares, and people who want to go into the business in the value chain because of the sudden increase. The ripple effect is getting people more interested in going back to the land. If the current interest is sustained and given appropriate government policies, Nigeria can get back to the good old days of the agricultural boom.
Partnerships are essential for the growth of any viable enterprise. Is CRIN in partnership with other companies or sister research institutes both at home and abroad?
Yes, we do have a lot of collaborators locally and internationally. We have the Lutheran World Relief, LWR, another name for the company is Corus International. We are partnering with them on research on cocoa. We also have the GIZ Move, a German institute that funds research on agricultural development in developing countries, particularly in Nigeria. We are also partnering with the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture, IITA, and several other universities in Nigeria. We are working with Summit University, the Obafemi Awolowo University, OAU Ile ife. We are working with the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, FUNAAB, and recently, we are working on a Memorandum of Understanding, MOU, with Landmark University. We already have an existing MOU with Taraba State University. The collaborations have been a win-win situation.
How is CRIN committed to ensuring food security and the actualization of President Bola Tinubu’s renewed hope agenda?
We are very committed to the food security agenda. I have just explained to you what money is coming to the cocoa farmers. When they have that, of course, they are empowered. Though the cashew farmers and cocoa farmers don’t only do cocoa and cashew, they also do some other crops: cassava and so on. When they have money in their pocket, they can expand and rehabilitate their farm. With this present situation, I can tell you that the farmers are empowered. Apart from that, we have programs like training that we do for farmers. We train them on good and modern agricultural practices for maximum harvests. We also receive support from international organizations and ensure they percolate to the grassroots for greater farming experience. We are doing all we can to make sure that the government program on food security comes to fruition.
Many people commended you during the 60th anniversary of CRIN. What is the secret?
The majority of the people that attended our 60th anniversary knew the institute before I took over the leadership. So, on coming and seeing all the improvements in infrastructure, they believe that the new sheriff in town is really working hard to make sure that the mandate of the institute has been achieved. So that’s why everybody was applauding us.
For 30 years, there was no annual report. As a scientist, when you enter any organization or research institute, the first thing you want to see is the annual report to know exactly what they’ve been doing in the past. If they have been doing something and it’s not documented in the annual report, it is as if they are doing nothing. I took the initiative to produce all the annual reports for 30 years back. I also made sure that all the research farms that were abandoned were brought back to life. I organized a task force for reclaiming back all those lost research farms, and we opened up everywhere. By so doing, we have more yield and more Internally Generated Revenue, IGR. We also opened up the institute to the world. The first thing is the website. The institute had a nonfunctional website, so I took the bold initiative to engage a professional to design a new website for us. All our information is right there for the whole world to see. And that’s a lot. Because people were seeing us, they started engaging us. Similarly, we also didn’t have internet. When I came in, I had to engage with Globalcom, and then I brought into the institute an internet connection of 100mpps. That opened up the researchers to the world.
I maintain an open-door policy. I made a broad kind of management committee that cuts across all sectors and units in the institute. We make decisions together during our regular meetings, where we debate issues and disagree to agree.
Lastly, I can say opening up the institute to the world gave us more partners across the globe. We were able to collaborate with other partners across the globe. We wrote proposals, some of which were successful, and we got a lot of donor-funded projects. Apart from the money, we are now being recognized internationally as capable of carrying out international research. It is a complete turnaround. In all, I return all gratitude to God.
What prepares you for your present assignment?
I have worked almost all over the world. I started my career at CRIN as a young scientist, and research officer 1. After my PhD, I left for South Africa for a post-doctoral fellowship, and I worked for the South African government for 11 years. I was the head of the plant budding division and the director of their agricultural research council. I have a lot of experience there and I travelled all over the world. I have to give credit to the government of South Africa for that. There is hardly any continent that I have not visited representing South Africa and gaining knowledge. I was trained in Israel for five months by the South African government. I was in the Netherlands, I was in Sweden, and I’ve been all over the world.
Apart from South Africa, I also worked in the UK. I know what is needed for research to thrive. Even inside Africa, I was in Liberia. I was also in Cote d’voire. So, I have that kind of experience from all over the world, and I think largely it really influenced how I was able to revive a moribund institute like then CRIN.