There is a quiet, pervasive, and deeply damaging national disgrace unfolding in our fields, forests, and savannahs. It is the disgrace of ignorance. We, as Nigerians, are the custodians of one of the world’s richest botanical treasures, a literal green goldmine. Yet, we treat this inheritance with a casual neglect that borders on contempt.

We see weeds, not potential pharmaceuticals. We see local vegetables, not high-value nutritional exports. We see bush, not a complex ecosystem of timber, fragrances, and genetic innovations. This must end. It is time for a fierce and unapologetic shift in our national mindset. A call to action to take pride in what is ours, to document it with scientific rigor, and to present it to the world not as a raw commodity, but as a national treasure.

The Uncatalogued Riches We Tread Upon

The wealth we ignore is staggering. It is not just about crude oil; it is about the living, breathing assets that define our land.

● Our Local Leafy Vegetables: We have a spectacular array of leafy vegetables, from Ugu and Efo riro to Afang and Bitterleaf. While we consume them locally, we have barely
scratched the surface of their scientific value. What are their precise nutritional profiles?
Their medicinal compounds? We have not invested in the research that would allow us to
market these as superfoods to a health conscious world, a title they undoubtedly deserve.

● Our Diverse Tubers: Nigeria is the king of yams, but our diversity in tubers is immense. We have countless varieties of cocoyam, water yam, and aerial yams, each with unique characteristics in taste, texture, and resilience. These are not just food; they are a library of genetic traits for drought resistance and climate adaptation that global agriculture desperately needs.

● Our Humble Grasses and Weeds: We actively clear plants we deem useless. Consider Vetiver grass, often overlooked, yet it is one of the world’s most effective tools
for erosion control and land stabilization, with valuable aromatic oils in its roots. The
weeds our parents used as traditional medicines contain complex phytochemicals that foreign researchers are actively studying, while we clear them with cutlasses and bulldozers. Every plant we fail to study is a potential cure, a new product, or a new industry lost.

● Our Precious Wood Species: Nigeria’s forests contain some of the most sought-after timber in the world. But beyond the raw logs, what about the value-added potential? We have trees that produce rare fragrance oils and resins. We have wood species with unique properties perfect for specialized, high-end furniture. We are exporting planks when we should be exporting finished, high-value artisanal products, backed by a
uniquely Nigerian brand of quality

The Urgent Call to Action: A National Mandate

To reverse this trend requires a deliberate, government-led, and nationally embraced strategy. This is not a request; it is a demand for a fundamental re-prioritization of our national assets.

1. Fund a National Bio-Mapping Initiative: We need a comprehensive, state-by-state, ecosystem-by-ecosystem survey of our flora. We must know what we have and where it is. This is a matter of national security and economic sovereignty.

2. Empower Our Research Institutions: The government must release significant funding to our universities and research institutes with a clear mandate: analyze our natural
products. We need labs dedicated to phytochemical analysis, nutritional profiling, and genetic sequencing. We must build our own body of knowledge.

3. Create a National Data Repository: All this research must culminate in a centralized, public-access digital library. This Encyclopedia of Nigerian Natural Resources would be
the foundation for a new bio-economy, accessible to entrepreneurs, scientists, farmers, and policymakers. It would be the platform from which we innovate.

4. Promote and Protect: Once documented, we must aggressively promote these assets. We need to create appellations and certifications for our unique products, just as the French protect Champagne and the Ethiopians protect their coffee beans. We must own our biological signature.

From Pride to Prosperity