Critical minerals underpin Washington's Nigeria overtures

On the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September, the United States and Nigeria agreed a new deal to “deepen American investment in Nigeria’s mining sector,” as Washington increasingly looks to leverage its security relationships across Africa to secure greater access to the continent’s critical minerals.

Dele Alake, Nigeria’s minister of solid minerals, said that the deal represented “an important step in strengthening Nigeria-US cooperation around our mineral resources, valued at about $700bn. The framework covers geological data and exploration, mineral development and processing, infrastructure and technical capacity.

“In the coming months, we will turn this framework into projects, investments and real results for our people. We will identify viable projects and build partnerships that create value for Nigerians and our US partners,” Alake claimed.

Under-explored potential

Munira Raji, senior research fellow in green minerals and the energy transition at the Africa Policy Research Institute, tells African Business that the opportunities in Nigeria could be considerable for the US and other potential partners.

“There is considerable excitement around Nigeria’s mineral endowment, but parts of the country remain under-explored, and we still need better geoscience data, resource definition and mineral characterisation before we can confidently translate that geological potential into economically recoverable resources,” she says.

“That said, Nigeria has a diverse mineral base. Lithium has understandably attracted significant attention because of its importance to batteries and energy storage, but I would also pay close attention to tantalum and niobium-bearing minerals such as coltan, as well as tin and rare earth elements, because of their relevance to clean energy technologies, advanced manufacturing and digital infrastructure.”

Thawing relations

The US and Nigeria had a fraught relationship at the start of the second Trump administration. Nigeria was hit particularly hard by the de-funding of USAID, which officially ceased operations in July last year; the US had funded about 90% of Nigeria’s HIV treatment operations and US assistance to the country had been worth around $740m in 2024.

In July last year the US imposed visa restrictions on the West African country. The move meant that Nigerians travelling to the US on non-immigrant visas would only be given single-entry three-month permits, rather than the five-year, multiple-entry visas they had previously received. Abuja also publicly rejected US pressure to accept third-country deportees as part of Trump’s migration agenda.

By late 2025 the diplomatic relationship had become frostier still, with the Trump administration designating Nigeria a “Country of Particular Concern” over religious freedom. Trump said that “Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria” from “radical Islamists” and that “thousands of Christians are being killed.”

Trump described Nigeria as a “disgraced country” and threatened “fast, vicious and sweet” military intervention to stop the alleged killings.

Ebenezer Obadare, senior fellow for Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in New York, tells African Business that “Nigeria has by and large steadied the ship after a rocky spell during which things threatened to get out of hand.

“The same President Trump who was threatening fire and brimstone back in December sent a letter to President Tinubu a couple of months ago saluting the latter for the wonderful job he has done,” Obadare adds. “It has been a remarkable turnaround within a short period of time.”

Critical minerals for security?

The turnaround has coincided with an increasing US focus on securing access to Africa’s critical minerals and reducing its dependence on China in strategic supply chains. As part of this push, the Trump administration has increasingly linked security diplomacy and cooperation with efforts to expand American access to critical mineral projects in Africa. In December last year, the US signed a “strategic partnership agreement” with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the world’s largest producer of cobalt; US companies were offered a “right of first offer” for designated mining projects.

This was directly linked with US efforts to broker a peace process with Rwanda – accused by Kinshasha and the United Nations of backing the M23 rebels in the eastern DRC – and to apply diplomatic pressure on Kigali to bring the conflict to an end.

While the link between US security support and critical minerals engagement is less explicit in Nigeria, there are signs that security ties have been bolstered in parallel with the minerals push. Military cooperation between Washington and Abuja has deepened markedly: on Christmas Day last year US forces carried out air strikes against Islamic State targets in Sokoto in partnership with Nigerian counterparts. In February the US stated that a small military team had been deployed to Nigeria and in May the two countries announced that they had executed a joint mission to kill Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, reportedly the global second-in-command of terror group Islamic State, in north-east Nigeria.

Obadare suggests that that the US’ increased military cooperation and engagement on critical minerals should be understood as part of the same broader strategy with Nigeria, “though the points of departure would seem to be different”.

“I think for the most part the fault lies with the US itself, especially in its signalling that critical minerals come first and everything else second,” he notes. “One can clearly see how, in a Nigerian context, it makes little sense to separate these.”

Raji says she “would be cautious about drawing a direct causal connection [between security and critical minerals]” and points out that “Nigeria and the United States have had a security relationship for many years, particularly around counterterrorism, intelligence cooperation, border security and regional stability.”

That said, Raji suggests that as critical minerals become of increasingly vital geopolitical and economic importance, security and commercial considerations will inevitably become intertwined. “I would argue that critical mineral supply chains depend on political stability, functioning institutions, secure infrastructure and predictable trading relationships, with governments paying greater attention to supply chain resilience and the stability of partner countries,” she tells African Business.

As Washington adopts an increasingly transactional approach to its relationships in Africa, security cooperation and access to strategic resources are likely to become ever more closely related.

Nigeria can use its leverage

Raji argues, however, that Nigeria and other African countries should seek to use their leverage to help them achieve their economic and development goals.

“I think Nigeria should want much more than foreign investment. Investment is obviously important. Mining is capital-intensive, and much of the infrastructure required to develop the sector will need significant financing,” she says. “But investment alone should not be the measure of whether a minerals partnership has been successful,” she argues.

“Nigeria should be negotiating for capability. That means better geological data and exploration capability; mineral testing and certification; processing and refining technologies; infrastructure; technical and vocational skills; research partnerships between universities, industry and geological institutions; financing beyond the mine itself; stronger environmental and social governance; and access to markets for Nigerian businesses throughout the value chain.

“In other words, a deeper mineral partnership should help Nigeria build capabilities that remain after the mineral leaves the ground.”