It is an area relatively ignored especially by persons displaced by insurgency but not in Abuja as some women explained that even though they are displaced, cashew business is thriving for them. ELEOJO IDACHABA narrates with additional reports from Premium Times.
For many of the people, especially women, displaced from the northern parts of the country as a result of the Boko haram insurgency but now live in various camps within the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), begging is not an option, rather they prefer to involve themselves in any menial drudgery just to keep body and soul together. While many of those women prefer to sit idly all day waiting for help to come, others decided to get themselves busy in businesses like selling grains and especially trade in cashew nuts.
One of them, Hassana Addi who lives in one of the camps located at Kuchingoro, an outskirt of the nation’s capital city told Blueprint that right from her village in Borno state where she came from, everyone knew her to be industrious because she traded in grains. However, she said since they cannot return to their community for fear of being attacked, she has decided to engage in buying and selling cashew nuts. According to her, she got the start-up capital in January 2018 from a lady who belonged to an NGO that visited the camp.
According to Hassana, “I buy cashew nuts from Gosa and Kuje. Sometimes, I go to Karmo market and sell them. It is from it that I make little profits. Although it is not much but I like it because it keeps me busy. I can feed myself and my two children.
Another lady, Hauwa Mohammed, who also does the business said, “This business brings lots of profit for me.” The 30-year-old mother of three lives in Damagaza, one of the unofficial camps in Abuja for persons displaced by the Boko Haram crisis. She has been trading in cashew nuts for over three years.
“I used the profit that I made in the business last year to roof the house I am building here.”
Mrs Mohammed said the business had also enabled her to cater for her children. Her husband who works as a security guard, does not earn much from the job and is not always at home.
According to her, the Gbagyi people planted cashew on their ancestral land in the FCT to protect it from being taken away by land grabbers who are sometimes made up of the government officials and estate developers.
Some women in the IDP camps soon found gold rummaging the plantation. They pick the cashew nuts and sell to itinerant commodity buyers.
Processing cashew
The cashew seed is more popular than the cashew apple itself because it is widely consumed as a snack after being roasted. The nuts can also be pressed to release edible cooking oil, which is considered healthier than most other types of cooking oil.
But despite being considered healthy, cashew oil is not in common use because of its cost. The high cost is due to the long process of extraction of the oil.
After being removed from the bottom of the fruit, the nuts are roasted or dried in an oven for easy removal from the shell. In Nigeria, all these are mostly done by hand.
To extract the oil, the shells and skins are first removed. The oil in the cashew shells is very toxic and can damage the human skin. Workers cover their hands with ashes to absorb this oil while working on the shells which are usually cracked with a mallet and the cashew nuts removed. Some mechanical devices may also be used to cut the shell off the nut.
The business
But the trade around cashew in Nigeria is not really about the cashew nut or the cooking oil extracted from it. The toxic liquid from the cashew nut shell, also known as the Cashew Nut Shell Liquid (CNSL), is the main target of the business.
The cashew nut shell yields several by-products used in a variety of products. They include friction linings, paints, laminating resins, rubber compounding resins, cashew cement, polyurethane based polymers, surfactants, epoxy resins, foundry chemicals, lubricants, brake fluid additive, waterproofing, paints, arms production and intermediates for the chemical industry.
The demand for the reddish-brown viscous liquid is quite huge in Nigeria as it is considered a better and cheaper material for unsaturated phenols and because of its multiple uses.
Women in the business
Amina Mohammed, the wife of the chairman of the Danmagaza IDP camp is one of the major traders in cashew nuts in the camp.
The 43-year-old recalled wistfully the boom she said the trade enjoyed last year. She was able to buy a grinding machine and started processing corns from her profits. She said she also took over from her husband the payment of the school fees of one of their children.
Amina said she bought her grinding machine for N40,000 in 2018. According to her she makes about N2,000 daily from it, aside from her regular canteen customers who pay weekly.
She said the cashew business started fully in the Danmagaza camp two years ago when some people came from Lagos to buy the nuts.
“Plenty people from Lagos came to buy from us. Last year, we sold one module for N700,” she said.
But the bubble has since ruptured. This year, Amina said a module has been selling for only N100.
“I was buying a bag for N20,000 but now I buy for N12,000 and sell for about N15,000. Last year, I sold a bag for as high as N70,000,” she said.
Hanatu Sadiq, 26, is a squatter in an unofficial IDP camp in Malaysia Garden, located in Kabusa area of Abuja. The widow and mother of three said she was easily attracted to the business because it is lucrative and doesn’t involve much stress.
“The market really brought profit for me last year. I started my provision business from the gains.”
The present challenge
Amina and Hauwa said they are given money in advance by the dealers who buy from them. But they said there had been no patronage by the dealers so far this year.
They believe foreigners coming to buy the nuts have been scared to stay away by the political atmosphere of Nigeria because of the elections.
Amina’s husband, Umar Mohammed, lost one of his legs during an attack by Boko Haram insurgents in Borno State. He has also felt the impact of the lull in business.
My prayer is for those foreigners to come because Nigeria doesn’t have a processing factory for cashew oil unlike groundnut oil, soya oil and some other oil produced in Nigeria.”
But the experience is not peculiar to the women cashew traders in Abuja. Across the cashew belt in Nigeria, farmers and traders have been severely hit by the fall in the price of the commodity.
The fall, however, is not unusual as it reflects the situation at the international commodity market. For commodities such as cashew nuts, cocoa, cotton and palm kernel, fluctuation is in the nature of the business.
