President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has called for a continental alliance to end Africa’s dependence on exporting raw minerals, urging African countries to prioritise local processing, manufacturing and value addition to retain more wealth from their natural resources.
Tinubu made the call in New York, United States, while declaring open the third Africa Minerals Strategy Group (AMSG) High-Level Roundtable on Critical Minerals Development in Africa, held on the sidelines of the 81st Session of the United Nations General Assembly.
Represented by Vice President Kashim Shettima, the President said Africa must move beyond its traditional role as a supplier of raw materials and develop integrated mineral value chains capable of creating jobs, industries, technology and wealth on the continent.
The roundtable, chaired by Tinubu alongside Shettima and the AMSG Chairman and Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dr Dele Alake, was themed ‘From Resources to Wealth: Continental Cooperation for Mineral Value Addition, Data Sovereignty, Innovative Financing and Critical Minerals Security.’
Tinubu said Africa could not continue to export the minerals required for global economic growth while communities where they are extracted remain without adequate infrastructure, jobs and meaningful participation in the resulting wealth.
‘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 said.
He identified cobalt, copper, lithium and rare earth elements as increasingly important to global supply chains because of growing demand from clean energy, artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing.
According to him, Africa’s response should include processing, refining, battery production, component manufacturing, African technologies and the development of competitive skills.
‘The worth of a mine must be counted in the lives it improves,’ Tinubu said, adding that jobs, industries, infrastructure, technology transfer, African enterprise participation and prosperity retained across generations should be used to measure progress from mineral resources to wealth.
The President warned that African countries would weaken their collective bargaining position if they competed against one another through lower royalties, weaker local-content requirements and excessive concessions.
‘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.
On Nigeria’s mining sector, Tinubu said the government was pursuing reforms that require local value addition for new mining licences, strengthen geological data and investor access, organise artisanal miners into cooperatives, combat illegal mining and improve regulatory accountability.
He said government revenue from the mining sector rose from about N6 billion in 2023 to more than N38 billion in 2024 and between N68.1 billion and N70 billion in 2025.
Tinubu also cited major foreign investment commitments and the development and commissioning of large-scale lithium processing capacity in Nasarawa State as evidence of the sector’s potential.
He said Nigeria’s mining policy direction was designed to ensure that minerals extracted in the country support Nigerian industries, workers, skills and host communities.
Offering Nigeria’s experience to other African countries for adaptation, the President called for partnerships based on mutual benefit, shared responsibility, sovereign equality and respect for national priorities.
He urged AMSG member countries to speak with one voice in advancing Africa’s collective interests, stressing that cooperation should not translate into dependency.
The President also called for the implementation of the Continental Integration and Economic Assurance Declaration (CIEAD), adopted at the roundtable, saying it should provide a predictable investment environment for Africa’s Strategic Mineral Corridors, harmonised policies, responsible investment and shared infrastructure.
He said the declaration must go beyond its adoption by establishing timelines, financing arrangements, implementation mechanisms and public accountability.
Earlier, Alake said the proposed CIEAD was designed to establish a unified framework for Africa’s critical and solid minerals value chains.
He urged African countries that had yet to join the AMSG to become members, saying greater cooperation would strengthen efforts to mobilise the ideas, resources and partnerships required to develop the continent’s mineral sector.
Alake said Africa’s mineral ambitions could not be achieved through policy implementation alone, stressing the need for integrated partnerships covering financing, infrastructure and other aspects of the value chain.
Kenya’s Minister of Blue Economy and Maritime Affairs, Hassan Ali Joho, called for greater domestic resource mobilisation to support solid mineral development.
Joho also urged AMSG members to maintain transparency and competitiveness while working towards greater alignment of licensing procedures, with due respect for the sovereignty of member states.
Representatives of Liberia, Chad and Tanzania, among other stakeholders, also contributed to the discussions.