By Emmanuel Oyedika
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has urged African nations to form an aggressive alliance to stop the exploitation of the continent’s critical mineral resources and halt raw material exports.
Speaking in New York at the 3rd Africa Minerals Strategy Group (AMSG) High-Level Roundtable on Critical Minerals Development in Africa, held on the sidelines of the 81st UNGA, Tinubu represented by Vice President Kashim Shettima said: “For generations, Africa has furnished the materials of prosperity elsewhere. Our duty is to ensure that the future being fashioned from African minerals has room for African ambition.”
He lamented that mineral-rich communities remain underdeveloped despite global demand for cobalt, copper, lithium, and rare earths. “The worth of a mine must be counted in the lives it improves. Jobs, industries, infrastructure, technology transfer, African enterprise participation and prosperity retained across generations must measure our progress,” he added.
Tinubu warned that no African country can achieve value addition alone, stressing that competition through lower royalties and excessive concessions weakens negotiating power. “Fragmentation leaves us exporting raw materials and buying finished goods at a premium. Cooperation gives our markets scale, our industries integration, our financing reach and our negotiations authority,” he said.
He cited Nigeria’s reforms, including local value addition requirements for new licences, strengthened geological data, artisanal miner organisation, and lithium processing in Nasarawa. These measures, he noted, have boosted mining revenues from about ₦6 billion in 2023 to over ₦38 billion in 2024, with projections of ₦68–70 billion in 2025.
The roundtable adopted the Continental Integration and Economic Assurance Declaration, which Tinubu said must create predictable, investment-ready environments for Africa’s Strategic Mineral Corridors. “Africa’s power resides in its people, markets and ingenuity. No outsider will organise our continent. Minerals confer no automatic prosperity; vision, investment and industry must earn it,” he declared.
Earlier, Dr. Dele Alake, AMSG Chairman and Nigeria’s Minister of Solid Minerals, described the Declaration as a landmark framework for unified mineral value chains, urging more African countries to join. Kenya’s Minister of Blue Economy, Hassan Ali Joho, also emphasised transparency, domestic resource mobilisation, and respect for sovereignty in licensing.
This marks Nigeria’s push for continental cooperation to transform Africa’s mineral wealth into sustainable prosperity.