Nigeria has wooed investors with incentives available in Nigeria’s mining sector for those interested in investing in the country, urging the majors to make a stake in the Nigerian mining sector, which is one of the most investor friendly in the world.
Speaking to investors during the just concluded mining conference in Riyadh Saudi, the Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Arc Olamilekan Adegbite, revealed that Nigeria has the mineral of the future that can power electric cars and phones.
Adegbite equally revealed that some major mining companies had began to express interest in the Nigerian mining sector. He also disclosed that the country intends to auction rights to mine some strategic minerals later this year.
“We have strengthened governance and transparency in the sector and provided assurance to investors through the upgrade, automation, and decentralization of the Mining Cadastre Office (MCO); We are improving the connectivity between investors and the public with important geological information through the establishment of a Nigeria Geo-Data Centre at the Nigerian Geological Survey Agency” Adegbite said.
The minister also noted that the country had learnt its lessons from over 50 years of resource extraction. “As we deepen our efforts to revitalize the mining sector, we are doing so with lessons learnt from a half-century of resource extraction. We recognize, for instance, that it is not enough to seek investments merely for the sake of exploitation and extraction. Rather than writing this new chapter of economic growth, our aim is to develop local industries, generate employment, and focus on resource beneficiation to create wealth along the mineral value chain,” he said.
A statement signed by the special assistant on media to the minister, Ayodeji Adeyemi, said the minister while talking to journalists at the sidelines of the event, noted that the federal government had invested $50 million to explore gold, lithium and several other metals.
“To date the country has discovered over 44 minerals occurring in commercial quantities across the 36 states and the federal capital Territory. These include gold, lithium, copper, cobalt, oxide, amongst others,” Adegbite said.
