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Mineral Beneficiation: Towards True Sovereignty, Development and Security in Nigeria

Author:

Omaji P.O.123

Affiliation:

1. President, “Subsoil of Africa” Consortium of Universities
2. International Competence Centre for Mining-Engineering Education under the auspices of UNESCO
3. Empress Catherine II St Petersburg Mining University, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation

Abstract:

Nigeria’s paradox of poverty in the midst of plenteous mineral resources is as legendary as that of the African continent as a whole. The explanation does not lie in the once propagandised “resource curse” in the Western literature about Africa. This article demonstrates that the poverty is attributable mostly to the lack of domestic mineral beneficiation, leading to the entrenched loss of sovereignty (economic, technological, and intellectual), underdevelopment, and widespread insecurity for most Nigerians. Drawing insights from “Development Criminology,”
a specialism in General Criminology, the article posits that for Nigeria, a resource-rich country, to rise from these predicaments, it must earnestly ramp up the beneficiation of its mineral resources. Critical for Nigeria is to address the deviances and criminalities in its resource-related political economy as they manifest in policy poverty, infrastructure deficiency, financial incapacity, and technological dependency. The fundamental solution resides largely in reorienting its regulatory responses to its subsoil use, leveraging local and continental synergies to address financing gaps, prioritising mineral beneficiation as a national security strategy, and fostering innovative contributions of the academia to induce technological self-reliance through specialized human capital development. The broader appeal of the article is in demonstrating that “mineral beneficiation is destiny,” not just for Nigeria but for Africa generally. Further, it invites more scholars to advance the “Development Criminology” specialism into a full-fledge theoretical framework for illuminating the nuanced intersection between mineral resources and critical political economy, with particular focus on sovereign domestic mineral beneficiation as a game changer.

Keywords:

Africa, Nigeria, poverty, mineral beneficiation, technology, Russia, sovereignty, development, security, Subsoil Africa Consortium.

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Received:
Revised:
Accepted:

For citation:

Omaji P.O. (2026). Mineral Beneficiation: Towards True Sovereignty, Development and Security in Nigeria. Journal of the Institute for African Studies. Vol. 12. № 2. Pp. 110–131. https://doi.org/10.31132/2412-5717-2026-75-2-110-131

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