ON Monday, October 6, the Honourable Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dr. Henry Dele Alake clocks 69. For many in Nigeria, the name conjures memories of his decades as a journalist and public communicator. These days, it represents a new hope for sustainable reform in Nigeria’s solid minerals sector and Africa’s mining industry. To understand the minister, you must know his father, Pa Michael Ojo Alake. He graduated in Philosophy from Fourah Bay College, then West Africa’s most prestigious university. He later founded and ran the Benevolent High School in Lagos, where indigenes of his hometown Ikoro-Ekiti, as well as indigent students, attended free of charge. His sacrifice was not ignored. The Ikoro people gave him the title, Eleyinmi of Ikoro-Ekiti to appreciate his benevolence. Between 1979 and 1983, Alake Senior was one of the trusted advisers of Governor Lateef Jakande on the formulation and implementation of the free education programme, a scheme which scrapped the classroom shift system and built over 500 new schools to accommodate the pupils in one single shift within four years.
Being an educationist, Alake Senior knew the impact of good schools in forming the character of a civilised, confident and progressive child. He put his son in the best schools of the times -Surulere Baptist Primary School, Surulere, Lagos; Christ’s School, Ado-Ekiti, Igbobi College, Yaba- and topped it with university education at the University of Lagos, where the minister studied Political Science and later earned a Master’s in Mass Communication. But his exposure was not only academic. His inter-campus, extra-curricular engagements brought him under the influence of Professor Wole Soyinka, further raising his social consciousness and commitment to public good. This pedigree set a high standard in morality, elocution, and public service for the minister. He is still determined to surpass it. His father excelled in education, but he chose communications. As soon as he enrolled in the National Youth Service Corps and was deployed to Ogun State Radio, his hard work and creativity were noticed. The organisation entrusted him with tasks of confirmed staffers. His work led to his engagement with Lagos State Radio and a quick elevation to Senior Sub-Editor-one of the fastest advancements in the organisation’s history.
The crusader
As columnist, news manager, and editor, Alake made crusading for good governance the raison d’être of his career. His choice of stories and writings was deliberately crafted to conscientize the readers in the fashion of Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. This required immense courage under military rule, and he was often the guest of the secret service. At such times, they would find him ready with his toilet bag. At one point, Concord Press of Nigeria, where he worked, was put under lock and key by the junta. But this didn’t deter the crusader, whose conviction that journalism must have social relevance made him even more determined to mobilise the people to resist bad governance. To Dele, the words of Frantz Fannon, that ‘ the future will have no pity for those men, who, possessing the exceptional privilege of being able to speak words of truth to their oppressors but have, instead, taken refuge in an attitude of passivity, of mute indifference, and sometimes, of cold complicity’ was a call to be an agent of change.
The annulment of the June 12, 1993 election won freely by the publisher of Concord Press, Bashorun Moshood Kashimawo Abiola thrust him into the epicentre of the struggle for the actualisation of this historic exercise of popular sovereignty by the Nigerian people. In that titanic struggle, he met and worked alongside Senator Bola Tinubu, who had given up his plan to be president of the Third Republic Senate to facilitate Abiola’s emergence. A comradeship that endures to date was forged in the furnace of that struggle, in Nigeria and exile. Indeed, Tinubu’s plan to return to the Senate in 1998 was diverted to governorship by advisers such as Alake, who believed he had established the progressive profile and financial wizardry to execute Abiola’s manifesto, Farewell to Poverty, in Lagos State at a micro-level and later escalate to the national level. When Bola Tinubu became Governor of Lagos State in 1999, Alake became the Lagos State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, a position he held till 2007. In that capacity, he was instrumental in shaping the communications strategy and public image of the Tinubu administration in Lagos. Beyond Lagos, Alake’s involvement in national politics deepened. In December 2014, he was appointed Director of Media and Communication for the Buhari Campaign Organisation during the 2015 presidential election. Over the years, he cultivated a reputation as a strategist, tactician, and loyal political confidant of President Tinubu.
The mining reformer
Only a man like Alake, who has established the mental agility for cracking difficult tasks and a record of standing up to the status quo, could have been assigned the herculean task of cleaning the Augean stable of the solid minerals sector. The risks were real: weak institutions, vested interests in illicit mining, and security challenges-all posed serious headwinds. Without strong follow-through, even well-intended policies can stall.
Since his appointment as the Minister of Solid Minerals Development in August 2023, he has led efforts to reform a sector long considered underutilised, fragmented, and rife with regulatory inefficiencies. Alake hit the ground running by applying the agenda-setting theory of journalism. He developed the Seven-Point Agenda for international competitiveness and local industrialization of Nigeria’s mining sector through critical research and review of the literature and interviews with stakeholders. He identified the challenges such as insecurity caused by illegal miners and bandits, speculation in licence administration, violations of the Minerals and Mining Act 2007, corporate void caused by the winding down of the Nigerian Mining Corporation, low rates of royalties and administrative fees despite multi-million dollar technological investment and the failure to establish statutory and regulatory bodies such as the Environmental Rehabilitation Fund.. He was very passionate on reversing the export of raw minerals and ensuring that minerals were processed locally to provide jobs and attract higher prices in the international markets.
In 25 months, Alake put no one in doubt that a new sheriff is in charge in the solid minerals sector. He took many steps. He set up the Mining Marshals to combat illegal mining and banditry, revoked 3,974 titles for failure to pay annual service fee or refusal to mine after obtaining licences, established the private sector-oriented Nigerian Solid Minerals Company and the Environmental Rehabilitation Fund,increased rates of administrative fees and royalties, and revolutionised mining communications. To top it all, advocacy for value addition that he espoused for the first time at the Future Minerals Forum in Riyadh in January 2024, won the hearts of ministers of mining in Africa. To maintain the momentum across the continent, they formed the Africa Minerals Strategy Group and made him the pioneer chairman. A year after, at the 2025 Future Minerals Forum, they poured encomiums on Alake for branding the one-year old AMSG into a continental colossus!
The results of Alake’s reforms in the solid minerals sector form a major component of the achievements of the Renewed Hope Agenda of the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. These include an increase in revenue of the Nigerian Mining Cadastral Office from N6billion in 2023 to N12.5 billion in 2024. It has reported N10 billion between January and April, this year. Similarly, for the first time, royalties collected by the Mines Inspectorate department of the Ministry peaked at N6.4 billion as at December, last year.
The advocacy for value addition has stimulated mineral processing and manufacturing projects such as Hasetins $400 million Rare Earth plant,$60 million ASBA lithium processing plant, $200 million Canmax Lithium plant, $200 million New Energy Materials Company Lithium plant and new processing projects are in the pipeline. It has encouraged existing plants such as Segilola/Thor, Kursi, Africa Industries Group to scale up operations. The Ministry, through SMDF, its funding agency, is also planning to invest inthe $1.3billiom alumina and$96.8million silica processing projects in collaboration with the Africa Finance Corporation.
The establishment of the Mining Marshals has led to the prosecution of over 300 suspected illegal miners by the Mining Marshals, dislodgement of illegal miners from 90 licenced areas and monitoring of 450 locations occupied by illegal miners. With more logistical resources, the enforcement of the mining laws will surely be intensified.
Transparency and accountability in licence administration have been achieved with the upgrade of the Electronic Mining Cadastre system, launch of mining decisions website and the improvement of content on the websites of the Nigerian Geological Survey Agency and the ministry. Today, research for and applications for licences can be initiated 24 hours every day from anywhere on the earth.
Alake has also intervened in human capacity development. His deal with the Australian government, negotiated during the Africa Down Under in September 2023 was executed this year with the training of the first batch of Nigerian geologists in modern exploration practices at the Murdoch university. Locally, over 250 youths have benefitted from workshops on gemology and jewellery making and the Institute of Geosciences continues to produce fresh mining professionals yearly.
What no serious witness of the solid minerals sector won’t contest is Alake’s sterling achievement in ensuring better compliance with the law. Operators are now more alert to their responsibilities and religious in observing deadlines and the rules of engagement.
With these records, Alake continues the family tradition by devotiny his life to the service of his fatherland. It is a daily grind of hardwork, creativity and persistence that may make him forget that another year has passed and today is his birthday. This article is a gentle reminder for him to take a day off and celebrate God’s grace. Happy birthday, sir!