As the global economy pivots toward clean energy and advanced technologies, nations with critical mineral reserves find themselves at a strategic crossroads. The recent U.S.-Ukraine partnership, formalised through a joint investment fund in April 2025, demonstrates how countries can leverage their mineral wealth—including titanium, lithium, and uranium—to attract international investment and drive reconstruction efforts. This partnership underscores a critical reality: in today’s economy, mineral resources are not just commodities but instruments of geopolitical and economic power.
Nigeria possesses similarly vast critical mineral reserves, yet the country has largely failed to capitalise on this strategic advantage. Despite holding significant deposits of lithium, tantalite, tin, and other minerals essential to modern technology, Nigeria’s mining sector contributes less than 1 per cent to GDP—a stark contrast to countries that have transformed their mineral wealth into economic prosperity. The root cause lies in Nigeria’s fragmented and outdated legal framework, which fails to provide the regulatory clarity, investment incentives, and governance structures necessary to attract serious capital or ensure sustainable development.
The cost of inaction is mounting. While other resource-rich nations are securing partnerships and building value-added industries, Nigeria risks becoming a mere exporter of raw materials, missing the opportunity to participate meaningfully in the global clean energy transition. This article examines Nigeria’s untapped critical mineral potential, identifies the specific legal and policy barriers preventing its realisation, and proposes a comprehensive reform agenda that could position Nigeria as a key player in the global critical minerals market.
Understanding critical minerals and Nigeria’s endowment
Critical minerals are natural resources that hold substantial economic importance yet face potential supply risks due to geopolitical factors, limited production sources, or concentration in specific regions. These minerals are vital components in various modern applications, including renewable energy technologies, defence systems, electronics, and telecommunications, with few viable substitutes for their unique properties. Examples include rare earth elements essential for magnets in wind turbines and electric vehicles, lithium and cobalt for batteries, platinum group metals for catalytic converters, gallium and indium for semiconductors, titanium and niobium for aerospace applications, and manganese for steel production.
Countries typically maintain and update their lists of critical minerals based on their specific economic requirements and vulnerability assessments, with these designations evolving alongside technological advancements, shifting geopolitical landscapes, and changing market dynamics.
Nigeria is endowed with substantial reserves of globally significant critical minerals that position the country as a potential key player in the global energy transition supply chain. The country’s critical mineral wealth includes lithium deposits in Nasarawa, Kogi, and Kwara states, which are essential for electric vehicle batteries and renewable energy storage systems. The Jos Plateau region hosts valuable columbite-tantalite deposits containing tantalum and niobium, minerals crucial for manufacturing electronic components, superalloys, and specialised steel products.
This same region also contains notable tin deposits, while promising rare earth element occurrences, though not fully explored, have been identified across the country – these elements are indispensable for producing permanent magnets used in wind turbines and electric vehicles. Additionally, Nigeria possesses graphite resources across several states, a mineral vital for battery anodes, lubricants, and numerous industrial applications that support modern manufacturing and energy technologies.
Current governance framework for critical minerals in Nigeria
Despite Nigeria’s rich endowment of critical minerals, the country’s approach to governing these resources is embedded within its broader mining sector framework, with limited specific provisions for these strategic materials. The Nigerian Constitution 1999 and Minerals and Mining Act (2007) establish state ownership of all mineral resources and provide the fundamental legal framework for mineral exploration and exploitation.
The Nigerian Minerals and Mining Regulations (2011) and the National Minerals and Metals Policy (2008) set strategic guidelines, technical standards, and operational requirements for sustainable development of Nigeria’s solid minerals and metals sector. The policy outlines important governance pillars, including transparent licensing procedures, comprehensive geological mapping, and fiscal incentives to encourage local mineral processing. However, this framework did not adequately address the specific governance needs of critical minerals. It lacked a robust classification framework or any mechanism for risk-based prioritisation of these resources.
The governance structure includes the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development (MMSD), Nigerian Geological Survey Agency (NGSA), Mining Cadastre Office (MCO), and Council of Nigerian Mining Engineers and Geoscientists (COMEG). While these institutions provide general oversight, they lack mandates specifically tailored to critical minerals management. Recent initiatives like the National Policy on Solid Minerals (2019), Presidential Artisanal Mining Initiative, and the Roadmap for the Growth and Development of the Nigerian Mining Industry have begun to recognise the importance of critical minerals, but implementation remains incomplete.
The existing legal and policy regime suffers from several critical shortcomings that hinder effective governance of these strategic resources. Most notably, there is an absence of comprehensive critical minerals classification, with no comprehensive legal definition or list of critical minerals specific to Nigeria and a lack of differential treatment for critical versus non-critical minerals.
This classification gap is compounded by weak implementation and enforcement, evident through limited capacity to enforce existing regulations and significant illegal mining and smuggling of critical minerals.
Credit:The Guardian