The Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dr Dele Alake, has dismissed claims that Nigeria sold $700bn worth of solid minerals to the United States, insisting that the bilateral agreement was designed to attract investment and facilitate cooperation, not transfer ownership of the country’s mineral assets.
Alake said no Nigerian asset was sold under the agreement, describing reports suggesting that the United States was taking over Nigeria’s mineral resources and security architecture as false.
The minister spoke in a statement on Wednesday after inaugurating the Nigeria-United States Committee on Strategic Cooperation in the Solid Minerals Sector.
“There is no sale of any Nigerian asset. There’s nothing exchanging hands,” Alake declared.
“We created a platform to facilitate mingling of US investment ventures with Nigeria’s local operators. It is in the public domain. We signed it in public and published it in four or five national newspapers,” he said.
The committee was established following a strategic cooperation framework between Nigeria and the United States during the 81st United Nations General Assembly in New York.
Alake said that the Memorandum of Understanding signed by both countries was a government-to-government arrangement intended to facilitate business-to-business engagements between American investors and Nigerian mining operators.
He said the partnership would attract investment, promote technology transfer, strengthen local mineral processing and create employment opportunities.
The minister also dismissed reports suggesting that the United States would take control of Nigeria’s mineral resources and security architecture, describing such claims as products of misinformation.
Explaining the rationale for the partnership, Alake said Nigeria was determined to change the pattern of international economic transactions in which African countries often received little value from their natural resources.
He noted that Nigeria had long depended heavily on oil revenues, while much of its solid minerals sector operated informally, with mineral ores extracted and exported without adequate local processing.
According to him, the Federal Government has introduced policies requiring investors to demonstrate clear plans for processing minerals locally before obtaining mineral titles.
Alake said the policy had encouraged the establishment of processing factories across the country, including what he described as West Africa’s largest lithium processing plant, recently commissioned in Nasarawa State by Vice-President Kashim Shettima.
The Economic Officer at the US Embassy, Jonathan Baas, said President Donald Trump had prioritised energy, artificial intelligence and superintelligence, as well as critical minerals, as key areas of focus for US embassies.
Baas said the United States was interested in working with partner countries to secure critical supply chains while ensuring that they also benefited from the value generated.
“We just signed a contract today on looking into building AI data centres in Nigeria at the Nigerian Economic Summit. That’s the direction Washington wants us to go,” he said.
