President Bola Tinubu has called on African nations to stop shipping out raw materials only to buy back finished goods, urging them instead to refine minerals locally, add value and industrialize.

His remarks, delivered on his behalf by Solid Minerals Development Minister Dele Alake at the opening of the 2026 African Natural Resources and Energy Investment Summit in Abuja, framed local processing and industrial capacity as the key to converting Africa’s resources into durable prosperity.

Convened under the banner “One Africa, One Resource Vision,” the summit gathered heads of government, mining bosses and investors from the United States and China. Tinubu argued that no global energy transition could happen without African minerals, and that lasting reward would go to those who added value rather than merely dug resources out of the ground.

Alake said Abuja had cancelled more than 10,000 idle mineral titles to discourage speculation, and that the reforms had drawn lithium processing ventures valued at $900 million and $600 million, a finished $200 million plant awaiting commissioning and a $1 billion iron ore scheme. He added that fresh geological work had confirmed commercially workable deposits of lithium, nickel, copper, gold and platinum group metals in Kaduna State and other areas. The group’s Secretary General, Moses Michael Engadu, urged African countries to cooperate rather than compete, saying joint action would let the continent make the most of its mineral endowment