The Missing Exports and Hidden Royalties – Gold

By Biliyaminu Suraj

Nigerian Federal Government authorities do not publish any reliable data about the export of lithium nor gold despite the continuous hype from Minister Alake about the alleged billions of dollars of foreign investment in Lithium production.

In Part 1 of THE MISSING EXPORTS AND HIDDEN ROYALTIES, we examined Nigeria’s Lithium exports and the royalties that should be generated by these exports. In Part 2 we examine gold exports and the royalties due to Nigeria.

In Part 1 we saw the lack of transparency and accountability of the Ministry of Solid Minerals Development (MSMD) and the Mining Cadastre Office (MCO) in failing to publish operator-level royalty and production data disaggregated by mineral type. Hence, as explained in Part 1, we must rely on mirror data for trade statistics as recorded by the importing country rather than by Nigeria’s own authorities. The two primary destinations for Nigeria’s lithium and gold exports are China and UAE respectively. Both publish data for minerals imported from Nigeria. In regard to gold, the UAE is the most significant destination for gold mined in Nigeria. Fortunately, the UAE records and publishes statistics on the amount of gold imported from Nigeria.

Gold Exports and Royalties

The mirror data for Nigeria’s gold trade is found in the UN Comtrade dataset which is a comprehensive global record of international trade statistics maintained by the United Nations Statistics Division since 1962, covering over 200 countries and more than 99% of world merchandise trade including minerals.

The UN Comtrade dataset shows gold imported by UAE from Nigeria in 2024: US$2.71 billion

This figure is explicitly listed under “gold, unwrought or semimanufactured forms” within the UAE’s imports from Nigeria.

This is the only year for which a disaggregated, Nigeriaspecific gold value is published (see Table 1).

Nigeria’s gold export data does not match the UAE’s gold import figures because most gold leaving Nigeria is not formally declared, moving instead through illegal mining sites, informal aggregators and smuggling networks that bypass customs and official reporting. Nigeria’s institutions—Customs, NEPC and the Ministry of Solid Minerals—record only licensed, documented exports, which represent a tiny fraction of actual production. Meanwhile, the UAE’s refinery and import system captures all incoming gold, including shipments that originated in Nigeria but were mislabelled, underinvoiced, or routed through third countries. The result is a persistent statistical gap: Nigeria reports almost no gold exports, while the UAE records billions of dollars’ worth of Nigerian-origin gold, revealing the scale of the informal corridor that operates outside Nigeria’s regulatory reach.

This mismatch has become structural: most Nigerian gold moves through informal buyers, middlemen, and smuggling networks that bypass Customs and the Nigerian Export Promotion Council. These illegal informal channels through Dubai and Sharjah are well known. Regardless of the channel the UAE’s gold refinery system logs all incoming metal, including gold that was misdeclared, underinvoiced, or routed through third countries.

But the gap is not only about undeclared exports—it is also about missing royalties.

Two pathways explain how gold royalties could have been paid yet never appeared in Nigeria’s federal accounts:

1. Legal miners may have paid royalties in Nigeria, but the payments were not remitted upwardinto the Central Bank—lost through administrative leakage, diversion, or corruption within the chain of custody.
2. Illegal miners and aggregators may have paid “royalties” informally—not to the Nigerian Government, but to local officials, security actors, or gatekeeperswho pocketed the money while allowing gold to move through illicit channels.

In both scenarios, the state loses three times:

• first, the gold is not recorded as an export;
• second, the royalty revenue never reaches the Central Bank;
• third the company exporting the gold does not pay corporate tax in Nigeria.

Royalty Calculation: What Nigeria Should Have Earned from Gold in 2024

Nigeria’s statutory royalty rate for gold under the Nigerian Minerals and Mining Act is 3% of the value of the mineral exported.

The royalty due for 2024, if the UAEreported gold had been declared, would be:

Nigeria’s lost gold royalty revenue for 2024: ≈ US$81.3 million (N110.9 billion)

This is the amount the Nigerian Government should have collected if the gold recorded by the UAE had been formally declared and taxed in Nigeria.

Instead, the combination of undeclared exports, informal payments and royalties diverted or pocketed means the federal treasury may have received none of this revenue.

Where is the missing US$81.3 million gold royalty for 2024?

The Combined Narrative

The Ministry of Solid Minerals Development says that the Federal Government of Nigeria made more than N70 billion from mining in 2025. According to Segun Tomori, the Solid Minerals Minister’s media assistant, income went up from N16 billion in 2023 to N38 billion in 2024 and then to N68 billion in 2025.

Calculated only on gold imported from Nigeria into the UAE the gold royalty payable for 2024 was N110 billion and yet the Solid Minerals Minister’s media assistant says the aggregated income from mining all minerals in 2024 was only N38 billion – N72 billion short when only counting the contribution of gold.

Compounding the shortfall in declared income from mining is the fact that the windfall described by the Solid Minerals Minister’s office was primarily from an astronomical increase in the cost of tenement fees imposed on Nigeria’s small-scale miners (Nigeria’s mining lease application fees are 29 times higher than Canada’s fees).

If gold mining companies are not officially paying royalties, then they are likely not paying taxes, further compounding the loss to Nigeria.

The gap in unrealised royalties from gold and lithium mining is huge and demands answers. The payment of royalties and taxes by mining companies demands a serious and independent review.

Approximately US200 million in royalties payable on lithium and gold is unaccounted for under the current Ministry of Solid Minerals Development.

Where is the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative? Where is the World Bank? Like the Ministry of Solid Minerals Development, they have both failed Nigerians.

Where are the missing royalties?

The Missing Exports And Hidden Royalties – Lithium

By Biliyaminu Suraj

biliyasuraj1980@yahoo.com

The Ministry of Solid Minerals has failed to disclose massive export of lithium to China and gold to the UAE and has hidden from the Nigerian public any evidence that royalties on the lithium and gold have been paid. Where are the royalties?

Nigeria does not publish reliable, timely, or detailed mineral export data. The Ministry of Solid Minerals Development (MSMD) and the Mining Cadastre Office (MCO) do not publish operator-level royalty or production data disaggregated by mineral type. The Nigerian Export Promotion Council and the Central Bank of Nigeria record mineral export values in aggregate, with significant lags and without the tonne-level detail needed to compute royalty liabilities.

Nigerian Federal Government authorities do not publish any reliable data about the export of lithium despite the continuous hype from Minister Alake about the alleged billions of dollars of foreign investment in lithium production.

Thus, when it comes to knowing how much lithium and gold, Nigeria’s two most important minerals being mined and exported, analysis must rely on mirror data. “Mirror data” refers to trade statistics recorded by the importing country rather than by the exporting nation’s own authorities. The two most significant destinations for Nigeria’s lithium and gold are China and UAE respectively. Both publish data for minerals imported from Nigeria. In this article, we examine Nigeria’s Lithium exports and the royalties that should be generated by these exports.

Lithium Exports and Royalties

Chinese customs data collected by the General Administration of Customs of the People’s Republic of China (GACC), as published by Shanghai Metals Market (SMM) and Mysteel, covering Nigerian spodumene/lithium ore arrivals in China, provides the only publicly available consistent series that allows an approximate assessment of the scale of Nigerian spodumene exports, and by implication, the royalty liability that should theoretically have been generated and paid to Nigeria. (Spodumene is one of the main raw ores or minerals from which lithium is extracted).

A compilation of data published by Shanghai Metals Market (SMM) and Mysteel, covering Nigerian spodumene/lithium ore arrivals in China reveals that in 2024 Chinese Customs recorded imports of approx. 450,000t of Spodumene from Nigeria. At a royalty rate of N9,500/t the royalty due to the Nigerian Government was N4.3 billion (see Table 1).

In 2025 Chinese Customs recorded imports of approx. 1.2Mt of Spodumene from Nigeria. Using the same royalty rate of N9,500/t the royalty due to the Nigerian Government was N11.4 billion.

2026 is on track to be on par with 2025 with royalties accumulating to the Nigerian Government of more than N11 billion.

Implied Scale of Undisclosed Exports and Royalty Payments.

A full-year 2025 estimate of approximately 1.1–1.2 million tonnes of Spodumene arriving in China from Nigeria, combined with whatever volumes were exported to other destinations (India, Europe, Japan) or processed domestically, implies a Nigerian spodumene production base significantly larger than anything disclosed in Nigeria’s Solid Minerals Ministry data. The March 2025 reporting period of the Mining Cadastre Office does not identify Nigerian Spodumene production at any volume close to these levels.

The gap between the figures from Chinese customs arrivals of lithium from Nigeria and Nigerian official production data gives rise to serious questions not only about the level of Spodumene production but also about the flow of royalties.

Where is the missing N25 billion lithium royalty for 2024-26?

Were the royalties not paid by the Chinese? If the royalties were not paid it seems unlikely the Chinese authorities would publish the import data and thus bring attention to the issue of unpaid royalties.

Companies in Nigeria are now paying all mining royalties directly to the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS).  All royalty payments began flowing to the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS) on 1 January 2026. This is the official commencement date of the new royalty‑collection regime. Before 1 January 2026, all mining royalty payments in Nigeria were made to the Ministry of Solid Minerals (formerly the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development).

So, assuming the Chinese paid the lithium royalties in 2024 and 2025 to the Ministry of Solid Minerals why aren’t they shown? More importantly … did the royalties actually reach the Ministry of Solid Minerals own Treasury Single Account (TSA) sub‑accounts at the Central Bank of Nigeria?

To date we have evidence published by Chinese authorities of the import of approximately 2 million tonnes of lithium from Nigeria. However, there is no evidence published by Nigerian authorities of royalties being paid.

 Where are the missing royalties?

If lithium mining companies are not paying royalties, then they are likely not paying taxes. What is the benefit to the nation of the billions of dollars that Minister Alake alleges has been invested in the solid minerals sector if corporate taxes and royalties are not being paid?

Nigeria’s Mining Investment Promises Ring Hollow as Jupiter Lithium Dispute Exposes a Troubling Contradiction

By Biliyaminu Suraj

Biliyasuraj1980@yahoo.com

Nigeria’s renewed courtship of American investors in the mining sector deserves more than applause. It deserves scrutiny.

On September 24, 2026, Minister of Solid Minerals Development Dele Alake announced on X that Nigeria and the United States had signed a framework agreement on mining investment. He said it was signed in New York with US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau and covers geological data and exploration, mineral development and processing, infrastructure and technical capacity. Minister Alake valued Nigeria’s mineral resources at about $700 billion. As reported, the announcement named no project and stated no investment figure.

That raises an uncomfortable question: what does a promise of a welcoming investment environment mean for investors who have already committed years of work and resources to developing Nigeria’s mineral wealth? The dispute over a major lithium project in Kaduna State offers a sobering answer.

In July 2024, American Resources Corporation’s subsidiary, ReElement Technologies, announced a joint development agreement with UK-based Jupiter Lithium Ltd to commercialise what the companies described as a world-class lithium deposit in Southern Kaduna. The project, held through Nigerian companies Basin Mining Limited and Range Mining Limited, covers about 442 square kilometres near Kafanchan under granted mining leases the companies said run to 2074 plus several mining lease applications awaiting grant by the Minister.

The announcement was ambitious. Jupiter planned to move from contract mining to large-scale operations, starting with 55,000 tonnes of spodumene concentrate a year and rising to 167,000 tonnes within two years, with first production projected for early 2025. It is not clear that production ever began. ReElement planned a processing facility in Nigeria to produce battery-grade lithium carbonate using the lithium concentrate produced from the Jupiter project, and the companies promised a continuation of community projects including potable water, electricity, agriculture and scholarships which Basin and Range had been implementing for several years. That is the domestic processing and industrial development Nigeria says it wants.

The project has since become an international investment dispute. Mid-last year, Jupiter alleged Nigerian authorities had unlawfully revoked its mining rights and seized the project. The firm also alleged that the government purportedly revoked 70 per cent of its mining leases and failed to decide on further mining lease applications within the 45 days the Mining Act requires, leaving the applications waiting more than two years. It further claims authorities forcibly escorted its personnel off the tenements. These are allegations, not findings.

The government’s case deserves a fair hearing. In a statement issued in early August 2026, the minister’s media adviser, Kehinde Bamigbetan, said the revoked titles belonged to Basin Mining Limited, a Nigerian company. He said they were revoked for failure to pay statutory annual service fees of ₦1.223 billion in 2024 on five mineral titles, a liability that rose to about ₦2.494 billion by the time the licences were revoked. The ministry says it has no legal or contractual relationship with Jupiter Lithium, Basin and Range’s UK parent company, because the Nigerian Minerals and Mining Act 2007 prohibits licences to foreign companies. But the government’s account leaves important questions unanswered. First, the ministry says it has no relationship with Jupiter Lithium Ltd and that Jupiter is unknown to the mining authorities, yet its own aide has described Basin Mining as an alleged Nigerian subsidiary of Jupiter and has acknowledged that Jupiter filed arbitration over the revocation. If a foreign mining company cannot directly hold a mining title how then does it invest in a mining project in Nigeria if not through a local Nigerian subsidiary? Second, by the ministry’s own figures the arrears roughly doubled before the licences were revoked. The  company alleges it had been denied access to its tenements for more than two years and questioned why it should pay annual fees if it could not access its tenements and could not develop the mineral assets it had discovered after years of exploration and investment. Third, why did the Ministry not grant the mining lease applications within the stipulated 45 days but reject the applications without notice nor reason after more than two years? Finally, the ministry has answered critics by calling their campaign blackmail, rather than publishing the records that would settle the matter.

The legal consequences are already in motion. The italaw docket lists a notice of intent dated July 1, 2025 and a request for arbitration dated December 1, 2025, under the 1990 Nigeria-United Kingdom Bilateral Investment Treaty. The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), part of the World Bank Group, has the case as Jupiter Lithium Ltd and Others v. Federal Republic of Nigeria, Case No. ARB/26/27, and it is pending. The Tribunal has been constituted but is yet to hear submissions  on Jupiter’s allegations or Nigeria’s defence.

An investor-state arbitration over a strategically important critical minerals project is not a minor administrative disagreement. It raises questions about regulatory predictability, the security of mineral titles and the confidence investors can place in Nigeria’s legal and investment framework. The government may argue it is simply enforcing the law, and it can make that case before the tribunal. But investors and the Nigerian public are equally entitled to ask whether enforcement was transparent, proportionate and consistent with the stated commitment to long-term investment.

There is also a contradiction in the government’s messaging. Nigeria is seeking American capital and presenting itself as an emerging destination for mining investment, while an existing major project that attracted international technical and commercial partners sits in an arbitration. What assurance can the government give a new American investor if the future of a project established under an international investment treaty with Nigeria’ is contested? The slump in trade between Nigeria and the UK of -45% in 2025 may reflect the diminishing confidence Nigeria’s traditional trading partners place in Nigeria while Nigeria looks towards China with trade up 38.4% in 2025.

Investors do not make investment decisions on speeches, memoranda or official photographs. They study how companies already in the market have fared. Security of title, predictability and consistency in mining regulations are critical. The significant increases in mining licence fees in 2025 without mining industry consultation saw exploration licenses experiencing fee increments as high as 2,000 percent and mining leases seeing increases of 4,000 percent.

The consequences run both ways. If the revocations are found to have violated the UK-Nigeria Bilateral Investment Treaty which provides investment protections, confidence in Nigeria’s mining sector would suffer and the country could face potentially significant financial liability in the Jupiter case. If the government shows the revocations were lawful and justified by genuine breaches, it reinforces the principle that investors must obey Nigerian law. Either way, the dispute demands transparency and documentary evidence, not public relations battles.

The Jupiter case is a litmus test for investment from reputable international mining companies. It demands transparency from both the Federal Government and the mining company. The Federal Government should clarify the status of the affected tenements and respond to the allegations about third-party access to the project area, the companies’ several petitions to remove illegal miners, the extraordinary delay in addressing the applications for mining licences and the MCO award of several licences over the companies’ valid tenements to third parties The same standard applies to Jupiter: its claims, however serious, must be backed by verifiable evidence and tested independently and they appear to be doing that by taking their claim to the World Bank’s arbitration platform, The International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), an expensive process that is not undertaken lightly.

The US-Nigeria September agreement may open real opportunities. Its value will be measured not by the enthusiasm around its signing, but by whether investors can operate under clear rules enforced consistently and fairly. Attracting foreign investment is only half the challenge. Protecting the credibility of the investment environment is the other half.

Until that contradiction is addressed, every new promise of a mining-sector investment boom deserves a pinch of salt.

How Nigeria’s Mineral Wealth Is Being Handed to China

Nigeria’s Minister for Mines, Dele Henry Alake, prides himself on his re-election as Chairman of the newly formed Africa Minerals Strategy Group. He congratulates himself on the cover of magazines. As a former journalist Minister Alake is good with scripting media stories. He doesn’t have any background in mining or related industries. During President Tinubu’s two terms as Governor of Lagos State it was Alake who managed the Governor’s media as the Commissioner for Information and Strategy.

Since bagging the Ministry for Sold Minerals Development Minister Alake’s primary focus has been on securing large-scale investments and fostering partnerships for local mineral processing. This has led to the development of several lithium processing plants in Nigeria, primarily backed by Chinese investment.

Minister Alake’s emphasis on moving beyond raw material extraction to local processing is a good decision that will support Nigeria’s industrialization and economic diversification. However, favouring Chinese companies and punishing local Nigerian miners is a cruel blow to Nigerians and a step too far in surrendering Nigeria’s natural assets to a foreign power.

Under Minister Alake’s tenure, major Chinese companies such as Canmax Technology, Jiuling Lithium, Avatar New Energy, and Asba have pledged lithium processing facilities in Nigeria.

Since late 2025, Canmax has aggressively secured raw spodumene (lithium ore) to feed its expanding processing faciliies. Canmax Technologies is primarily owned and controlled by its founder and chairman, Mr Pei Zhenhua, alongside his wife, Rong Jianfen. Alake claims Canmax is investing US$200M to develop lithium mining operations in Nigeria, in line with Chinese aggressive moves to control African mineral resources and infrastructure such as ports and railways necessary to exploit the mineral reserves.

In late 2025, Chinese megafirm CATL announced plans to increase its stake in Canmax’s lithium subsidiaries. CATL holds approximately 40 percent of the global EV battery market and almost 70 percent of the NCM (Nickel-Cobalt-Manganese) battery market in China. China as a whole processes approximately 65 percent to 80 percent of the world’s lithium. As the dominant player in China, CATL effectively directs a majority of the lithium hydroxide refined within the country toward its own Gigafactories.

While UK company Jupiter Lithium Ltd’s massive lithium project in Kaduna State reels under the onslaught from armed illegal miners, Alake’s ministry deployed a specialized security unit known as Mining Marshals to safeguard nearby Canmax and Avatar sites from illegal mining activities. No amount of requests from Jupiter for assistance from Minister Alake elicited any support. Rather, Minister Alake revoked key lithium deposits discovered by Jupiter and allowed Chinese mining companies, escorted by Federal Government security, to enter Jupiter’s leases and commence mining and removing the ore mined and stockpiled by Jupiter.

Minister Alake has prioritised diplomatic engagement with Chinese officials to discuss strengthening bilateral relations and find ways to diminish the public attention to China’s involvement in illegal mining in Nigeria.

The mines minister has become a strong and frequent advocate for China’s involvement in Nigeria’s minerals and infrastructure development which has been a hallmark of his many trips to China.

Nigeria has fallen into line with China’s strategy for accessing and controlling Africa’s minerals resources and delivering more markets for Chinese technology and products.

China’s first stage of embedding itself in another nation is the offer to develop a country’s infrastructure; ports, roads, airports and railways. This essential infrastructure often facilitates the development of mineral projects China has chosen.

The second stage is introducing Chinese technology through the project development, especially surveillance technology. China replaces the US-based Global Positioning System (GPS) with China’s BeiDou satellite navigation system and blocks access to Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite. In so doing China is able to offer its support for the national government while penetrating Nigeria’s national security. Chinese technology can deliver facial recognition throughout entire cities, even at night.

In Iran several of China’s communications companies including Huawei, facial recognition and ethnicity tracking company Tiandy Technologies and ZTE, often operating through Iranian front companies, have worked with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to provide 360 degrees 24/7 surveillance of Iran’s population. Iran and China have signed a 25-year co-operation agreement that will facilitate the transfer of a range of surveillance and monitoring technologies under the Belt and Road Initiative.

Surveillance of a nation’s populations is now an integral part of China’s program of building a nation’s infrastructure through roads, airports and mines. This provides an unprecedented tool for national governments to retain power and be manipulated by China.

…Steven Kefas is a conflict reporter with keen interest in mining and solid minerals.

Ladduga: How a Controversial Settlement Became a Symbol of Southern Kaduna’s Security Crisis

By Mike Agwam

Ladduga is a land where the government acquired for the purpose of animal husbandry, covering 73, hectares of land which was forcefully taken away from the indigenous people of southern Kaduna to give Fulanis.

For those who may not be knowledgeable about the place, let me vividly give a description of the place, If you are traveling to southern Kaduna before reaching kachia there is railway crossing just some few meters before the rail line, there’s a feeder road that connects with the high way by the left hand side, it is this road that will lead you to Laduga.

No sooner government acquired this land it became a settlement area for the Fulanis, Fulani of all race came and settled in this place, the disturbing phenomenon is that little do southern Kaduna people knew that this town will metamorphosed to be the den of criminals and a safe haven for Fulani terrorists.

During Patrick Yakowa reign there was a time the military had an intelligent report about the activities of these criminals, they were all rounded up in the night in a stink operation by the military, where amongst those arrested was the leader of the community. He was found complicit.

Laduga is known for being a notorious place for harbouring Fulani terrorists, they moved in the night go to neighbouring town attack people in their sleep, massacre, burn their houses and disappear in thin and back to base, which is Laduga. There was a time the men doing this evil act went out and never returned and their women came out protesting asking where there husbands were.

It was in this condition that Elrufai came to power, having every security report about the place, instead of taking measures to end the horrendous activities of his people, he continue to fan their ego by elevating the local community leader to a District head. He did not stop at that, he acquired more land and added to Laduga community, I was informed that the vast portion of land he grabbed belongs to the Ikulu people. Their ancestral land.

Elrufai did everything humanly possible to defend the Fulani even telling lies that 150 Fulanis were killed by Adara youths and buried in a shallow grave, when investigated by the military it turnout it was a lie from the pit of hell.
Some of his people still praise him for dealing decisively with southern Kaduna people. “Ya ji wa arna”, meaning he has dealt with the infidel.

Kaduna’s Broken Compass: Why Zoning Must Travel Beyond Abuja

By Steven Kefas

There is a quiet hypocrisy at the heart of Nigerian democracy, one that the political class has mastered the art of ignoring. We speak grandly of federal character, of inclusion, of ensuring that no region feels permanently shut out of power. We build this principle into party constitutions, into presidential tickets, into the unwritten codes that govern who gets to lead. And yet, when the lens shifts from the national stage to the states, the principle dissolves. Nowhere is this contradiction more glaring than in Kaduna State.

Since the return to civilian rule in 1999, Kaduna State has been governed almost exclusively by political figures from its predominantly Muslim north. This is not an accident of electoral mathematics. It is the product of deliberate choices made within the corridors of the Peoples Democratic Party and, later, the All Progressives Congress, choices that have consistently elevated northern Kaduna at the expense of the state’s Christian-majority south. In a state where the population is almost evenly divided between north and south, between Muslim and Christian, this pattern is not merely a political inconvenience. It is a wound that festers quietly beneath the surface of every election cycle.

The lone, luminous exception came not through the foresight of party leaders, but through the intervention of fate. When President Goodluck Jonathan appointed Governor Namadi Sambo as his Vice President in 2010, the governorship fell almost by accident to Sir Patrick Ibrahim Yakowa, a Christian from southern Kaduna who was then deputy governor to Sambo. Yakowa proved that the fears used to justify exclusion were unfounded. He governed with competence and dignity, won election in his own right in 2011, and built a coalition that crossed religious and regional lines. His victory was historic. The violence that greeted it in parts of the north was a sobering reminder of how deeply the politics of exclusion had poisoned the well.

Then, in December 2012, Yakowa perished in a helicopter crash. Power returned, as if by gravitational pull, to the northern part of the state. The brief window had closed. And in the decade-plus since, neither the PDP nor the APC has shown the political will to revisit what that window revealed: that Kaduna’s south is ready, capable, and deserving of a turn at the helm.

This context matters enormously as Nigeria’s political class turns its attention to the emerging Nigeria Democratic Congress. The NDC has already made a statement of intent by zoning its presidential candidacy to the south, with former Anambra Governor Peter Obi widely tipped as the consensus candidate. It is a credible, principled gesture, one that signals the party understands the logic of inclusion that has undergirded national politics since 1999. But a party that champions inclusion at the top while tolerating exclusion at the state level is not a party of principle. It is a party of convenience.

The question analysts are beginning to ask and that the NDC’s leadership must answer directly is whether the party’s commitment to fairness will cascade downward into the states. Will the NDC, as it builds its structures in Kaduna, demonstrate the courage that the PDP and APC have consistently lacked? Will it zone its governorship ticket to the south of the state, to a zone that has held the position for only a fleeting, grief-cut tenure in over twenty-five years of democracy?

The case for doing so is not merely sentimental. It is strategic. Southern Kaduna carries deep reservoirs of political grievance, grievances born not of imagination but of lived experience. Communities that have endured cycles of violence, displacement, and political marginalisation do not need more promises. They need the concrete, visible proof that democracy means something for them too. A party that offers that proof in Kaduna will not simply win votes. It will build loyalty of a different and more durable kind.

There are those who will argue that zoning is a blunt instrument, that merit should prevail over geography. It is a reasonable objection, and in a mature democracy with a level political field, it would carry great weight. But Nigeria’s political field is not level. It has been tilted, in state after state, by the accumulated weight of incumbent advantage, party gatekeeping, and the quiet veto of those who benefit from the status quo. In such conditions, zoning is not an abandonment of merit. It is the scaffolding that gives merit the chance to be seen.

Nigeria’s democracy turns twenty-seven this year. It has produced much to be proud of: peaceful transfers of power, a vibrant press, citizens increasingly willing to hold leaders accountable. But it has also produced stubborn patterns of exclusion that no amount of constitutional rhetoric has dislodged. If the NDC is to represent something genuinely new and not merely a reshuffling of old political elites under a fresh banner it must be willing to do in the states what it is doing at the centre.

Patrick Yakowa did not govern Kaduna as a southern Christian. He governed it as a Kaduna man, and the state was better for it. His story is both an argument and an invitation, an argument that inclusion works, and an invitation to every political party with the courage to take it seriously. The NDC now stands at that threshold. What it decides about Kaduna and about states like it across the federation will tell us whether it has truly read the lesson that Nigeria’s history has been trying, with such patience, to teach.

Beyond its own electoral fortunes, the NDC has an opportunity that few parties in Nigeria’s history have been handed: to become a model. The PDP governed for sixteen years and entrenched the very imbalances it once promised to dismantle especialli at state levels. The APC rode to power on the language of change and proceeded, in state after state, to replicate the exclusions it had condemned. If the NDC is serious about being different, let it demonstrate that seriousness not only in its presidential ticket but in every senatorial zone, and governorship race it contests. Let it be the party that other parties are embarrassed to ignore, the standard against which Nigerian voters begin to measure political seriousness. Equity and fairness should not be the NDC’s campaign slogan. They should be its operating system.

■

The Unfortunate Price of “Second-Term” Politics: Middle Belt Nigeria

By Zariy Yusuf

It does seem the primarily focus of some politicians has moved away from impactful governance – if at all they swore their oath of office with sincerity – to scheming how to remain in power, come 2027. Protection of lives and property must no longer be seen as strictly a Federal government responsibility; state governors and elected representatives must be held accountable as well.

Kaduna and Plateau states have seen a lot of bloodshed within these past days with a kind of response I can best describe as either weak or cowardly from the state governors. There is an energy that forces one to think that even the response of these “chief security officers” must be such that does not displease the centre.

Kaduna is notorious for suppression of the facts about the activities of these militant Islamists, who are more conveniently described as mere “bandits”, thanks to the immediate past governor, Nasir Elrufa’i.

The Adara nation has suffered untold raids from these extremists with little or no media or government attention. Mrs Haske Solomon was abducted in a raid in the early hours of March 17th, 2026 in addition to three others that were taken on the 10th of March, 2026. The terrorists are demanding a ransom of 20 million naira.

The recent massacres of Christians in these states (Kagarko in Kaduna and Unguwar Rukuba in Plateau) should be a call on the political leaders of these states and the entirety of the Middle Belt to focus on their primary assignment and not betray their people in the pursuit of their political ambition.

The visit of the president to the Plateau betrayed how much the leadership in the Middle Belt is lacking. At least, someone would have insisted the president stayed back in Abuja and make a call to the victims or proceed on his trip to Ogun, instead of dragging mourners to the airport to meet him. Something reminiscent to his visit to another Middle Beltan state, Benue, over the Yelewata massacre.

Simply put, the massive decamping of the politicians of the Middle Belt to the APC seems to have no bargain for their people other than the very hope of those politicians to clinch a second term or benefit their ambitions, as the case may be. At least in terms of the massacre of Middle Beltans, the mass decamping of the political leaders of the region to the ruling party has been of no consequence whatsoever.

It is my sincere belief that if the government has failed in protecting the lives of the peoples of the Middle Belt or eliminating these Islamists who kill with impunity and always get away freely, then it must allow for the people to arm and organize at community levels to protect what seems to be the only thing they have left – their lives and those of their loved ones.

Gov. Uba Sani of Kaduna must suspend all antics about and against the 2027 elections, account for the security of his state and immediately attend to Kagarko, where over 13 people were killed, 10 wounded and 28 abducted. Silence about the security mess Kaduna state is in does not change the reality on ground.

The report from Kagarko is heartbreaking:

Killed:

1. Douglas John

2. Ado Yakubu

3. Mai Kano Aribi

4. John Dan Asabe

5. Williams Luka

6. Bako Danjuma

7. Joseph Yakubu

8. Victor Peter

9. Peter Williams

10. Dogara Markus

11. Francis Amadu

12. Zephaniah Alhaji

13. Name yet to be known.

Wounded:

1. Micah Tanko.

2. Fidelis Awuh

3. Samson Alhaji

4. Habila Bulus

5. Colonius Dauda

6. Lina samaila

7. Bello Alkali

8. Felix Erick

9. Francis Tanko

10. Doctor Solomon

Kidnapped:

1. Tanko Makeri

2. Jummai Victor

3. Tanko Madaki

4. Beauty Marshal

5. Mariya Dominic

6. Awede Tanko

7. Patience Bitrus

8. Thadious Augustine

9. Salome Danladi

10. Ephraim Monday

11. Kande Monday

12. Lucky Monday

13. Lidiya Benjamin

14. Gambo Benjamin

15. Najirgi Yakubu

16. Danladi Kagarko

17. Daniel Shehu

18. Talatu Ibrahim

19. Dauda Markus

20. Peace Waziri

21. Tanko Waziri

22. Promise Waziri

23. Asami Dauda

24. Awuh Adams

25. Bulus Sunday

26. Chibi Emmanuel

27. Peace Luka

28. Name not yet known

Enough of the bloodshed!

Credit for list of victims: David Dokuma

China’s Increasing Control of Africa’s Mineral Resources

By Biliyaminu Suraj

biliyasuraj247@yahoo.com

Nigeria’s Minister for Mines prides himself on his recent re-election as Chairman of the newly formed Africa Minerals Strategy Group, established by African Ministers of Minerals and Mining to foster cooperation among African nations in the development of critical minerals. Minister Alake is a former journalist and close friend of President Tinubu. During Tinubu’s two terms as Governor of Lagos State it was Alake who managed Tinubu’s media as the Governor’s Commissioner for Information and Strategy.

It is this African Minerals Strategy Group that is leading the push for the introduction of the Madini Protocol, a blockchain platform which will be the Trojan Horse for Chinese control of the African minerals sector.

Since becoming Minister for Sold Minerals Development Alake’s primary focus has been on securing large-scale investments and fostering partnerships for local mineral processing. This has led to the development of several lithium processing plants in Nigeria, primarily backed by Chinese investment. Major Chinese companies such as Canmax Technology, Jiuling Lithium, Avatar New Energy, and Asba have announced investment in lithium processing facilities in Nigeria.

Since late 2025, Canmax has aggressively secured lithium ore to feed its expanding processing faciliies. Canmax Technologies is primarily owned and controlled by its founder and chairman, Mr Pei Zhenhua, alongside his wife, Rong Jianfen. Alake claims Canmax is investing US$200M to develop lithium mining operations in Nigeria, in line with Chinese aggressive moves to control African mineral resources and infrastructure such as ports and railways necessary to exploit the mineral reserves.

Chinese megafirm CATL announced plans to increase its stake in Canmax’s lithium subsidiaries. CATL holds approximately 40 percent of the global EV battery market and almost 70 percent of the NCM (Nickel-Cobalt-Manganese) battery market in China. China as a whole processes approximately 65 percent to 80 percent of the world’s lithium. As the dominant player in China, CATL effectively directs a majority of the lithium hydroxide refined within the country toward its own Gigafactories.

Minister Alake has become a frequent and strong advocate for China’s involvement in Nigeria’s minerals and infrastructure development which has been a hallmark of his many trips to China.

As Chairman of the Africa Minerals Strategy Group, Minister Alake has introduced the Madini Protocol, a Chinese backed blockchain-based platform for trading and digital financing. This hi-tech system is not only designed for tracking minerals from extraction to market but also tracking every person involved in the supply chain including local villagers who may be employed at the mine. The system converts unmined mineral reserves into tradable digital tokens.

In other central Asian countries China state-controlled tech companies are rolling out platforms that turn natural resources including water into digital tokens tradable on blockchain-based platforms and for digital financing. The Chinese companies rolling out deals with governments say there is no limit to what they can tokenize and make tradable on their platforms.

The Madini Protocol, made possible through a collaboration between David Chen (Founder of BLCP Capital, now Chairman of GTIF) and Chris Wong (CEO of LifeSite). LifeSite Inc., is fronted as the technology company behind the TokenX platform and the Madini Protocol. The background of Wong’s co-founders in this hi-tech digital software is interesting. Crystal Lee, a co-founder of LifeSite, was Miss California 2013 and runner-up in the Miss America 2014 pageant. YoonJin Chang, also a co-founder of LifeSite was a former Miss Korea runner-up in 2010.

Wong’s long term business associate is David Chen who founded and led Deloitte’s Chinese Services Group in Mexico. Chen’s experience is primarily with food, health, entertainment and real estate industries before moving into global esports and entertainment through FaZe Clan which achieved a valuation of $725 million via a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) merger in 2022 only to plunge to a 2026 estimate of $13 million.

Wong and Chen’s Madini Protocol is touted as a vehicle allowing African nations to raise capital via the Africa Mineral Token (AMT). In fact, it is a route for China to capture control of Africa’s mineral resources initially targeting Lithium and Gold. It is promoted by Minister Alake as a means of financing through the digital tokenisation to provide a way for Chinese funding for projects via smart contracts on the blockchain.

The Africa Minerals Strategy Group led by Minister Alake is China’s Trojan Horse to capture control of Africa’s mineral resources through mining infrastructure investment using the Madini Protocol to fund Chinese built and operated ore processing plants. All the while Nigerian officials turn a blind eye to the Chinese sourcing of lithium ore for their Nigerian processing plants from illegal miners, paying protection money to heavily armed militants, bandits and ISIS connected groups controlling increasingly larger areas of Nigeria’s North and Central regions. The extreme insecurity of these areas is a perfect cover for Chinese companies illegally mining who pay terrorists protection money rather than state royalties.

In the Year of the Horse Mines Ministers across Africa, like the people of ancient Troy, may welcome the gift brought to their gates by Minister Alake and his Chinese backed partners only to find it is a Trojan Horse which, once inside the gates, is uncontrollable.

Soldiers Not Protecting Middle Belters But Protecting Cows

By Mike Odeh James

A recent Punch report celebrated Nigerian soldiers for foiling a cattle-rustling attempt in Agatu Local Government Area of Benue State, complete with photographs of arrested men proudly displayed like trophies. The comments section was having none of it.

“This is the only thing the Nigerian Army knows how to do — guide Fulani terrorists to kill Benue citizens, then arrest innocent Benue youths and parade them as cattle rustlers to justify the killings,” one reader wrote.

That is not an exaggeration. That is a pattern.

The men arrested are not criminals by disposition — they are indigenes of a land soaked in the blood of their own people; survivors of years of Fulani terrorist massacres who have buried neighbours, fled burning homesteads, and watched their farmlands annexed by armed herders. The military knows this. It does not care.

These same soldiers — fully aware that Benue State has a legally operational anti-open grazing law — have deliberately looked the other way as Fulani herders brazenly violate that law, driving cattle across cultivated farmlands, destroying harvests and livelihoods, without a single arrest, a single query, or a single apology.

The selectivity is not incompetence. It is policy.

In Amadu, Taraba, soldiers ignored repeated community distress calls about Fulani attacks — then swooped in to arrest local men the moment Fulani complainants pointed fingers. In Abaji Kpav, troops deployed ostensibly against militants instead turned their boots on the very villagers they were sent to protect, beating elders and humiliating residents.

The Nigerian Army owes the Middle Belt an explanation. Who exactly are these soldiers serving — the Nigerian constitution, or the herdsmen’s cattle?

ONLY THE FULANI JIHADIST–IMPERIAL AGENDA FEARS A UNITED MIDDLE BELT

Barr. John Apollos Maton
9th February 2026

A REBUTTAL TO A SAD JOKE MASQUERADING AS POLITICAL ANALYSIS

I don’t know who the recent Fulani stooge Cham Faliya Sharon is, but his/her writeup “IS THE CONFUSION OF THE MIDDLE BELT COMING FULL CIRCLE TO BITE THE MIDDLE BELT” is such a ridiculous piece I was ashamed for the writer when it opened with a quote from Thomas Paine. I mean, it takes a special pompous type of clown to not only go through writing this but even have it reshared on public platforms by the Fulani Immigrants Nigeria should be sending packing.

The joke of an article under review is not analysis but performance—an exercise in ideological ventriloquism by a writer who mistakes obedience for insight. It reads like a brief written to order, not a position arrived at through honest inquiry. Like Judas Iscariot, the author appears to have concluded that selling one’s intellectual integrity for proximity to power is a rational transaction. History, however, records such bargains not as cleverness but as cowardice.

We are told, with great theatrical confidence, that the Middle Belt is a confusion: a geographical impossibility, a political contradiction, a manufactured identity sustained by ignorance and manipulation. Yet what is truly confused is an argument that elevates imposed constitutions to divine scripture while dismissing lived history as irrelevant; that treats maps as sacred while treating people as disposable; and that assumes identity must first be approved by dominant blocs before it can exist. This is not reason—it is authoritarian logic wrapped in the language of common sense.

Let us nonetheless grant the author every imaginable concession. Let us ignore, for the moment, the extensive scholarly work of Dr. Bitrus Pogo and numerous historians, sociologists, and political scientists who have rigorously documented the Middle Belt as a historical and political reality. Let us assume—without conceding—that they are wrong. Let us even accept the childish claim that because the phrase “Middle Belt” does not appear verbatim in the 1999 Constitution, the identity itself must therefore be fraudulent. Even under these generous assumptions, the argument collapses completely.

For even if the Middle Belt were nothing more than a political consciousness emerging from shared experiences of marginalization, violence, and exclusion, that alone would make it real. Peoples are not born fully mapped and notarized; they are forged through history, memory, and struggle. And it is precisely this process—now ripening into collective clarity—that terrifies the imperial imagination animating the essay.

FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION AND SELF-DETERMINATION ARE NOT GIFTS FROM ANY HEGEMON

At the most elementary level, the argument fails because it assumes identity is something granted rather than asserted. Under Nigeria’s own Constitution, this assumption is indefensible. Section 40 of the 1999 Constitution explicitly guarantees every citizen the right to assemble freely and associate with others for the protection of their interests. Section 39 guarantees freedom of expression, including the right to receive and impart ideas. These provisions are not decorative—they are foundational.

Beyond domestic law, Nigeria is a signatory to binding international instruments that go even further. Article 20 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights affirms the unequivocal right of all peoples to self-determination and to freely pursue their political, economic, and social development. Article 22 reinforces this by recognizing the collective right to development. These are not abstract ideals; they are enforceable norms incorporated into Nigerian law by domestication of the Charter.

At the global level, the principle is even clearer. Common Article 1 of both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) states plainly that all peoples have the right to self-determination and to freely determine their political status. Nowhere in international law is there a requirement that a people must first satisfy the cartographic preferences of their detractors before asserting this right.

The demand that the Middle Belt must “draw a perfect map” before it may exist is therefore not legal reasoning; it is imperial obstruction. Colonial borders across Africa were drawn arbitrarily, yet no one questions their legitimacy on the grounds of incoherence. To suddenly demand mathematical neatness only when marginalized peoples organize themselves is not intellectual rigor—it is selective skepticism deployed as a weapon.

THE MIDDLE BELT POSSESSES ANCESTRAL LAND, HISTORY, AND MEMORY—IT IS NOT A FICTION

While totally excusing the Fulani Immigrants who have made the lives of true natives and real Indigenes of Nigeria a living hell, one of the most dishonest maneuvers in the essay is its deliberate avoidance of ancestry. We are invited to obsess over lines on a map while ignoring the more uncomfortable question of who has lived where, for how long, and under what conditions. The communities commonly described as Middle Belt peoples are not recent arrivals, nor are they abstract categories invented in conference halls. They are indigenous populations rooted in specific territories long before colonial intrusion.

Unlike the Fulani Immigrants who don’t belong in Nigeria, these communities possess traceable genealogies, distinct languages, religious traditions, and systems of governance that predate both British colonial rule and the later Nigerian state. Historical records—from colonial archives to oral histories—document repeated episodes of subjugation, forced incorporation, and indirect rule imposed upon them. To pretend that these histories dissolve simply because a constitution failed to name them explicitly is not ignorance; it is historical vandalism.

International law has long rejected the notion that identity disappears because it is inconvenient to power. The United Nations’ recognition of indigenous peoples worldwide—culminating in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007—affirmed that historical continuity with pre-colonial societies is a valid basis for collective rights, regardless of later political rearrangements. Identity survives conquest; memory survives subjugation.

What unsettles the Fulani and their stooge — the essay’s author is that this memory is now politically articulate. The Middle Belt is not asking to be invented; it is insisting on being recognized on its own terms, not as an appendix to someone else’s empire. And once ancestry and land are acknowledged, violence can no longer be dismissed as “misunderstanding,” nor dispossession reframed as inevitability.

POLITICAL DIVERSITY DOES NOT NEGATE COLLECTIVE EXISTENCE

Perhaps the most intellectually hollow claim advanced is that internal political diversity invalidates Middle Belt identity. By this logic, Nigeria itself—fractured by ethnic, religious, and ideological divisions—should not exist. The argument collapses the moment it is applied consistently.

Political disagreement is not evidence of non-existence; it is evidence of political life. Only caricatures are uniform. Real peoples debate leadership, disagree on strategy, and pursue competing interests while still recognizing shared historical experiences and structural threats. To demand absolute unanimity as the price of recognition is to demand silence, not coherence.
International practice confirms this reality. From Catalonia to Kurdistan, from Quebec to Scotland, political plurality has never been treated as proof that a people does not exist. On the contrary, it is often cited as evidence of democratic maturity. The insistence that the Middle Belt must be perfectly homogeneous before it can claim identity is therefore not a standard—it is a pretext.

What truly disturbs the essay’s author is not contradiction but consolidation. As long as Middle Belt communities were forced to negotiate individually, they could be managed and ignored. A shared political vocabulary changes that balance. Patterns can be named, responsibilities assigned, and demands articulated collectively. That shift, not geography, is the real provocation.

IDENTITY ERASURE AS A CLASSIC IMPERIAL STRATEGY

The structure of the essay follows a script as old as the attempted Immigrant Fulani empire in Nigeria itself. First, deny that the people exist. Next, ridicule their attempts at self-definition. Then, frame their resistance as manipulation by outsiders. Finally, present continued domination as common sense and stability. This pattern has been documented across colonial history, from the Americas to Africa to Asia.

International law evolved precisely to dismantle this logic. The post-World War II order—reflected in the UN Charter’s emphasis on self-determination—was a direct response to the catastrophic consequences of identity denial and imperial domination. The decolonization movements of the twentieth century did not succeed because empires suddenly became benevolent; they succeeded because peoples insisted on naming themselves.

By portraying Middle Belt consciousness as a southern plot or a geographical error, the essay avoids confronting the structural realities of exclusion and violence. Identity erasure here is not accidental; it is instrumental. If a people do not exist, then nothing done to them can be legally or morally framed as injustice.
What the Fulani and author fears, ultimately, is accountability. A people who know who they are can trace how they arrived at their present condition. They can distinguish accident from policy, conflict from campaign. Once that distinction is made, the old excuses collapse, and the Immigrants who have long overstayed their welcome will be evicted.

CONCLUSION: MIDDLE BELT UNITY IS THE THREAT TO FULANI IMPERIALISM, NOT CONFUSION

Strip away the sarcasm, selective geography, and performative concern, and one truth remains unmistakable: a united Middle Belt disrupts long-standing arrangements of Fulani immigrant domination. It replaces silence with memory and fragmentation with demand for what we as a native people are due. It transforms suffering and genocide under the Fulani Islamic Terrorist Jihadists agenda into political clarity, self determination and intolerance for foreign terrorist influence.

The Middle Belt does not require validation from those Fulani invested in its marginalization and destruction. It does not need permission to associate, to name itself, or to pursue its collective interests. Even the fake Nigerian constitutional law made to further Fulani agenda in Nigeria protects this right. African human-rights law affirms it. International law enshrines it.

The joke of an article I was sent and repeatedly asked to consider is therefore not a warning to the Middle Belt but a confession from Fulani and their stooges. It reveals anxiety, not authority—fear, not confidence.

Like with the Fualni’s who through the Genocide of Christians and Indigenes of Nigeria hope to continue the Fodio Caliphate agenda, empires are never threatened by confusion. They are threatened by clarity.

And clarity is precisely what is emerging.