Nigeria risks losing thousands of jobs and billions of naira in potential earnings by exporting gemstones in their raw form instead of processing them into finished products, stakeholders in the mining sector have warned.
They called for the establishment of gemstone processing clusters, affordable financing, improved security and sustained skills development to enable local operators to capture more value from the country’s mineral resources.
The stakeholders spoke at the just-concluded 11th Nigeria Mining Week on Wednesday in Abuja, where industry players stressed that Nigeria could build a competitive gemstone and jewellery industry by investing in cutting, treatment, grading, branding and manufacturing instead of relying largely on the extraction and export of raw stones.
The Country Manager of Adelia, Segun Okoh, said Nigeria needed a coordinated system that would continuously develop skilled workers and entrepreneurs while connecting mining communities to the entire gemstone value chain.
Citing Tanzania’s experience, Okoh advocated the establishment of processing clusters where mining, grading, cutting and jewellery production would take place within the same geographical area.
He said, “The first is to create a system. It’s not a case of, train some sets now, send them out, then wait. No. Create a system whereby it’s kind of like a machine line, churning out the right people in the right places for those who want to. Secondly, we have to ensure that they can speak the language, and the language is pretty much financial language, because if they have the skill sets and they understand the financial language, then we can say we can start entrepreneurial initiative.”
According to him, access to business knowledge and capital is essential to converting technical skills into viable enterprises that can employ more Nigerians.
“Entrepreneurial initiatives are backed by capital, right? And the more they generate this capital, the more they can employ other people,” he added.
Okoh said the cluster model would reduce the cost of moving gemstones between mining locations and processing centres while ensuring that communities benefit from the additional value created.
“In every cluster, we ensure that the entire value chain of the gem industry is in clusters, whereby where they are being mined is not far from where it’s going to be graded, not far from where it’s going to be turned to finished products,” he said.
He added that Nigeria needed standardised quality control and a system that rewarded operators who complied with regulations rather than those who relied on shortcuts.
“The formal market that involves both the small-scale miners, right? You are competing against the small guys in one way or the other, because the small guys are, like you said, cheaper, right? But however, as a country, we need to find a way to ensure that those that are willing to put in the investment, put in the work, gets the payouts as good as,” Okoh said.
He argued that an integrated value chain would allow artisanal miners, women and young people in mining communities to earn income at different stages of production, from extraction to the sale of finished products. Similarly, the Chief Executive Officer of Laurel School of Mines, Tope Adebanjo, said Nigeria was surrendering economic opportunities by allowing valuable gemstones to leave the country without adequate processing.
Adebanjo said his institution was established in 2013 to develop entrepreneurs in gemstone and jewellery production, adding that Nigeria needed to build the skills required to manufacture products for domestic and international markets. He identified gemstone treatment, enhancement, evaluation and jewellery making as critical areas requiring investment.
“When we get the stone, as he said, what do we do with it? You have to enhance it. Enhancement is key. But what we do in Nigeria is that we just take them out raw like that to create more employment for the people over there. Enhancement is really, really key. Evaluation of the gemstones too. There is treatment. There are so many things that we are trying to train our people on now, so that our gemstones will not be taken out of the country just like that”, he said.
Adebanjo cited Thailand as an example of a country that had developed a major gemstone and jewellery industry despite not possessing the same level of natural gemstone resources as countries that export raw stones. He said Nigeria should support entrepreneurs who could transform locally mined minerals into finished products, rather than concentrate on extraction alone.
The President of the Gemstones Miners and Marketers Association of Nigeria, Engineer Adeniran Ajibade, also called for sustained training, better branding and improved access to domestic and international markets. Ajibade said Nigeria needed to develop its gemstone identity and improve the quality of products presented to international buyers to secure better prices.
He stressed that training interventions should be continuous and cover the entire value chain, including mining techniques, processing, jewellery making and marketing.
“It is not a question of duplication of this skill. It is a question of proliferation of this skill. Let’s look at how many of them we can train, you know, from each local government”, he said.
Ajibade explained that gemstones found across Nigeria differed in quality, with some suitable for bead making and others requiring specialised cutting and finishing techniques.
He said better processing and branding could help Nigerian gemstones compete with stones from established producing countries.
The association president also highlighted the need to develop the domestic market, noting that Nigeria had substantial demand for jewellery and decorative products that could be supplied by local manufacturers.
He said the association was working towards establishing an international gemstone buying centre in Nigeria to attract buyers and improve the bargaining power of local miners.
“We are trying to also develop the Nigerian International Gemstone Buying Centre. These are all efforts towards making sure that those people who come here, when they come to come and see us, we will not be playing away. We will be playing at home,” Ajibade said.
He also called for artisanal miners to be organised into cooperatives and linked to licensed small-scale mining operators to improve compliance with environmental and mining regulations.
According to him, stronger organisation would make it easier to monitor mining activities, enforce environmental management plans and ensure that operators rehabilitated mined-out areas.
On investment, the Exploration Manager at JFR Gold, Kieran Harrington, said Nigeria had considerable gold mining potential but was yet to attract international investment on the scale required to develop the industry.
He identified insecurity as one of the factors discouraging foreign investors and urged the government to intensify efforts to improve investor confidence.
Harrington, however, maintained that some security concerns about the country were overstated, adding that sustained government support would be necessary to attract more exploration and production investments.
The Sales Manager of Mecano Motors Division, Mecano International Limited, Michael Adekoya, identified access to affordable equipment as another major obstacle to mining development.
He said high interest rates had discouraged potential customers from purchasing essential machinery, limiting the ability of operators to expand production and adopt modern mining methods.
Adekoya urged the government to engage financial institutions to develop more favourable lending arrangements for mining businesses.
The Deputy Managing Director of Rapid Link Resources Limited, Enema Samson, stressed the importance of modern technology and local expertise in mineral exploration.
He said the Nigerian-owned company supported exploration activities through geological surveys, drilling and laboratory analysis, services he described as necessary for identifying and developing commercially viable mineral deposits.
On illegal mining, a representative of Segilola Resources Operating Limited, Maduri Saka Amoda, called for stronger collaboration between the government, mining companies and host communities. She said community sensitisation had helped reduce illegal mining around the company’s operations, emphasising that local participation was important for improving security and building trust.
Amoda added that Nigerians accounted for 99 per cent of the company’s workforce, highlighting the potential of mining investments to generate local employment.
Meanwhile, the Permanent Secretary of the Taraba State Bureau for Solid Minerals, Matai David Anji, disclosed that the state had about 16 mining licences covering minerals including gold, lithium, sapphire, tourmaline and copper ore.
He said the state was seeking investors interested in joint ventures to develop its mineral resources, but disclosed that mining activities had been suspended because of insecurity and other challenges. Anji said the government was working to formalise artisanal mining and attract responsible investors who could help develop the state’s mineral deposits.
The stakeholders maintained that Nigeria’s ability to derive greater economic benefits from mining would depend on moving beyond the extraction and export of raw minerals.
They called for coordinated government policies, private-sector investment, improved security, access to financing and sustained technical training to establish a competitive domestic gemstone industry capable of creating jobs, supporting mining communities and increasing export earnings.