Tinubu Urges Africa to End Exploitation of Critical Minerals
…Push for Value Addition
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has called on African nations to unite in protecting the continent’s vast mineral resources from exploitation, insisting that Africa must move beyond exporting raw materials and focus on value addition, industrialisation, and technology transfer.
Speaking on Tuesday while receiving a delegation of the African Minerals Strategy Group (AMSG) at the State House in Abuja, Tinubu urged member countries to speak with one voice in promoting Africa’s collective interests in the global minerals market.
The President, who serves as Grand Patron of the group, said Africa must strengthen its bargaining power and ensure that its mineral wealth translates into economic prosperity for its people.
“We must put an end to exploitation,” Tinubu declared. “The rest of the world won’t mind if your country is a cesspit of dams and rubbish and excavates your raw materials without giving value. It is our responsibility to collaborate and cooperate to ensure that these metals and minerals bring value to us, bring technology to us, and we can do it.”
He stressed the need for increased investment in research, development, and refining capacities across the continent, arguing that Africa should become a hub for knowledge-based industries built around its mineral resources.
According to Tinubu, the continent possesses enormous mineral wealth that should be strategically harnessed to drive industrialisation, create jobs, and accelerate economic transformation.
The President maintained that the era of exporting raw minerals without local processing and beneficiation must come to an end, advocating a new development model that encourages local industries, technology transfer, and stronger value chains capable of retaining wealth within Africa.
Earlier, the Chairman of AMSG and Nigeria’s Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dele Alake, commended Tinubu for his leadership and support for reforms in Nigeria’s mining sector under the Renewed Hope Agenda.
Alake said the President’s emphasis on local value addition had become a guiding principle for the group and was gaining traction across Africa.
“You charged us that local value addition should be the pivot around which all the objectives of this organisation revolve. Today, local value addition is reverberating all over Africa,” he said.
He noted that several African countries had already taken steps to ban the export of raw minerals in order to encourage domestic processing and beneficiation.
Alake also informed the President that AMSG members were in Abuja for the fifth edition of the African Natural Resources and Energy Investment Summit (AFNIS 2026), themed “One Africa, One Resource Vision.”
The summit is expected to advance discussions on a unified continental strategy for resource management, industrial development, and Africa’s position in the global critical minerals value chain.
Reaffirming the group’s commitment to safeguarding Africa’s interests, Alake said AMSG would continue to advocate policies aimed at increasing the value and revenue generated from the continent’s mineral resources.
