President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has called for an aggressive alliance among African countries to end the export of the continent’s critical minerals in raw form and build a common industrial strategy anchored on local processing, manufacturing and value addition.
Tinubu said Africa could no longer afford a system in which its mineral resources fuel prosperity elsewhere while communities sitting on the deposits remain trapped in poverty, unemployment and infrastructure deficits.
The President spoke at the Third Africa Minerals Strategy Group (AMSG) High-Level Roundtable on Critical Minerals Development in Africa in New York, United States, held on the sidelines of the 81st Session of the United Nations General Assembly.
A statement issued on Tuesday by Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Communications, Office of the Vice President, Stanley Nkwocha, said the meeting took place on Monday.
Tinubu, who convened and chaired the roundtable, was represented by Vice President Kashim Shettima.
Nigeria’s Minister of Solid Minerals Development and Chairman of the AMSG Ministerial Committee, Dr Dele Alake, also participated in the meeting.
The roundtable, themed: ‘From Resources to Wealth: Continental Cooperation for Mineral Value Addition, Data Sovereignty, Innovative Financing and Critical Minerals Security’, brought together African leaders and other stakeholders to fashion a coordinated approach to converting the continent’s vast mineral deposits into sustainable economic and industrial wealth.
The President said the rapidly growing global demand for minerals required for clean energy, artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing had made Africa’s deposits of cobalt, copper, lithium and rare earth elements increasingly central to global supply chains and economic security.
He, however, warned that Africa would remain on the margins of the emerging global economy unless its countries abandoned the traditional extract-and-export model and developed industries around their resources.
‘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’, Tinubu said.
According to him, it was unacceptable for a continent endowed with enormous mineral resources to continue witnessing poverty and deprivation in communities whose resources enrich industries elsewhere.
‘The answer must be processing, refining, batteries, components, African technologies and competitive skills.
‘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 from resources to wealth’, he said.
Tinubu cautioned African countries against competing against one another through lower royalties, weaker local-content requirements and excessive concessions to investors, saying such practices would only erode the continent’s collective bargaining 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.
The President said no African country could independently develop the scale required to exercise sufficient influence in the global critical-minerals market, stressing that continental cooperation had become an economic necessity.
He cited Nigeria’s reforms in the solid minerals sector as an example of how African countries could insist on domestic benefits from mining investments while still attracting serious capital.
According to him, Nigeria is requiring local value addition for new mining licences, strengthening geological data and investor access, organising artisanal miners into cooperatives, combating illegal mining and improving regulatory accountability.
Tinubu said the reforms had contributed to a sharp increase in government revenue from the sector, from approximately ?6 billion in 2023 to more than ?38 billion in 2024 and between ?68.1 billion and ?70 billion in 2025.
He also pointed to major foreign investment commitments and large-scale lithium processing capacity developed and commissioned in Nasarawa State as evidence of the possibilities offered by a value-addition policy.
The President said his administration’s policy was that minerals extracted from Nigeria must contribute directly to Nigerian industries, employment, skills development and the prosperity of host communities.
He added that the experience had demonstrated that ‘firm terms can attract serious capital’.
Tinubu urged other African countries to adapt lessons from Nigeria’s experience while developing partnerships based on mutual benefit, sovereign equality and respect for national priorities.
He called for ‘reliable partnerships grounded in mutual benefit, shared responsibility, sovereign equality and respect for our priorities, with fair market access, industrial investment and technology partnerships that build African capabilities’.
The President also urged AMSG member countries to speak with one voice in negotiations with international investors and partners, insisting that ‘reliability must never mean dependency, and partnership must never demand inequality’.
At the meeting, African leaders adopted and signed the Continental Integration and Economic Assurance Declaration (CIEAD), conceived as a framework for coordinating critical-minerals policies, investment mobilisation, value addition and supply-chain security across the continent.
The initiative had been billed ahead of the meeting as a major step towards a common continental architecture for mineral development.
Tinubu said the declaration should create a predictable and investment-ready environment for Africa’s Strategic Mineral Corridors through harmonised policies, responsible investment and shared infrastructure.
He, however, warned against allowing the agreement to end with ceremonial signatures, demanding a binding implementation programme backed by timelines, financing and public accountability.
The President urged African governments to specify their national and regional contributions to the initiative, while development finance institutions and sovereign investors should put forward financing platforms to support implementation.
Declaring the roundtable open, Tinubu said Africans must take responsibility for organising their resources and markets in their own interests rather than expecting external powers to prioritise the continent’s industrial aspirations.
‘Africa’s power resides in its people, markets and ingenuity. No outsider will organise our continent or place our industrial interests above their own. We must integrate our markets, mobilise African capital and negotiate with one voice wherever our interests converge.
‘Our industrial growth can strengthen global prosperity, the energy transition and secure supply chains. Minerals confer no automatic prosperity; vision, investment and industry must earn it. Political will must turn mineral promise into enduring African wealth’, he said.
Earlier, Alake said the proposed Continental Integration and Economic Assurance Declaration was designed as a landmark framework for creating a unified architecture for Africa’s critical and solid-minerals value chains.
He said the growth of the AMSG reflected increasing recognition by African countries of the need to coordinate their policies and resources to maximise the benefits of the continent’s mineral endowment.
Alake urged African countries that had yet to join the group to do so, saying greater membership would strengthen the synergy of ideas, resources and policies required to advance Africa’s interests.
He said the continent’s mineral ambitions could not be achieved through policy implementation alone, stressing the need for fully integrated partnerships covering financing, infrastructure and industrial development.
Kenya’s Minister of Blue Economy and Maritime Affairs, Hassan Ali Joho, also stressed the importance of domestic resource mobilisation as a catalyst for solid-minerals development.
Joho said AMSG members must remain transparent and competitive and work towards greater alignment of licensing procedures while respecting the sovereignty of individual member states.
Representatives of Liberia, Chad and Tanzania, among other stakeholders, also contributed to the roundtable.