The Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dr Dele Alake, has dismissed claims that Nigeria offered $700bn price of strong minerals to the United States, insisting that the bilateral settlement was designed to draw funding and facilitate cooperation, not switch possession of the nation’s mineral property.
Alake stated no Nigerian asset was offered below the settlement, describing studies suggesting that the United States was taking on Nigeria’s mineral sources and safety structure as false.
The minister spoke in a press release on Wednesday after inaugurating the Nigeria-United States Committee on Strategic Cooperation within 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 stated.
The committee was established following a strategic cooperation framework between Nigeria and the United States through the 81st United Nations General Assembly in New York.
Alake stated that the Memorandum of Understanding signed by each nations was a government-to-government association supposed to facilitate business-to-business engagements between American traders and Nigerian mining operators.
He stated the partnership would appeal to funding, promote expertise switch, strengthen native mineral processing and create employment alternatives.
The minister additionally dismissed studies suggesting that the United States would take management of Nigeria’s mineral sources and safety structure, describing such claims as merchandise of misinformation.
Explaining the rationale for the partnership, Alake stated Nigeria was decided to vary the sample of worldwide financial transactions through which African nations usually obtained little worth from their pure sources.
He famous that Nigeria had lengthy depended closely on oil revenues, whereas a lot of its strong minerals sector operated informally, with mineral ores extracted and exported with out sufficient native processing.
According to him, the Federal Government has launched insurance policies requiring traders to reveal clear plans for processing minerals domestically earlier than acquiring mineral titles.
Alake stated the coverage had inspired the institution of processing factories throughout the nation, together with what he described as West Africa’s largest lithium processing plant, not too long ago commissioned in Nasarawa State by Vice-President Kashim Shettima.
The Economic Officer on the US Embassy, Jonathan Baas, stated President Donald Trump had prioritised power, synthetic intelligence and superintelligence, in addition to crucial minerals, as key areas of focus for US embassies.
Baas stated the United States was interested by working with companion nations to safe crucial provide chains whereas making certain that in addition they benefited from the worth 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 stated.
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