Nigeria Possesses $750 Billion Worth Of Solid Minerals – Alake
The Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dele Alake, has said Nigeria currently has a deposit of mineral products worth $750 billion.
Alake stated that the Bola Tinubu government is working to ensure the country becomes a promising investment destination for solid minerals development.
He said this on Monday at a two-day national stakeholders’ roundtable on sustainable development of the mining industry organised by the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies in Abuja.
Alake revealed preliminary reports by a German firm, GeoScan, that indicated the nation is blessed with minerals worth a conservative $750 billion.
The minister said the mining sector has the potential to contribute significantly to the nation’s goal of achieving a trillion-dollar economy, as pushed by the current administration.
Alake, however, said the availability of data is important to attract investors who will establish plants in Nigeria to process the minerals, creating a multiplier effect on job creation and economic growth.
He said, “We are working with the World Bank, Excalibur and GeoScan, a German company, to get the necessary data on the sector.
“That is why the federal government signed a memorandum of understanding with Geoscan and they did a preliminary survey of our minerals on the output and potential. They gave us a figure of $750bn worth of minerals embedded under the ground of Nigeria.
“That is a conservative estimate, by the time we conduct a serious, accurate data exploration, we will discover that we have trillions of solid minerals embedded under. So, the president’s projection of a one-dollar economy is not a fluke.
“By the time we are done with all of these efforts, input and policies we are putting in place, trillions of naira will be a child’s play and we will be nudging trillions of dollars.”
Alake stated that the solid minerals industry is undergoing ongoing reforms aimed at revitalising the sector.
He stressed the importance of preventing Nigeria from remaining solely a ‘pit-to-port’ exporter of solid minerals, with processing and conversion activities outsourced to other countries.
He also said that communities from which solid minerals are extracted must henceforth derive maximum benefit from solid minerals exploration.
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