By Chika Okeke
The Raw Materials Research and Development Council (RMRDC) has formulated a strategic policy to harness Nigeria’s $582.4 billion non-renewable natural resources in support of President Bola Tinubu’s goal of achieving a $1 trillion economy.
This is even as the Agency noted that across Africa’s 54 nations, Nigeria’s endowment of critical transition minerals, agricultural raw materials, and industrial feedstock is virtually peerless.
Director-General and Chief Executive Officer of RMRDC, Prof. Nnanyelugo Ike-Muonso stated this on Tuesday while briefing newsmen ahead of the second edition of the Africa Raw Materials Summit (ARMS 2026).
He said: “Across Africa’s 54 nations, our endowment of critical transition minerals, agricultural raw materials, and industrial feedstock is virtually peerless. Yet our vulnerability to external commodity price shocks persists, our currencies face avoidable pressures, and our youth seek jobs that our raw-commodity export model ships overseas.”
The ARMS 2026 billed for October in Abuja with the theme: “From African Feedstock to African Factories’, marks an inflection point where policy, capital, technology, and political will align to ensure that what is extracted from African soil is transformed on African soil.
In May 2025, the RMRDC convened the maiden ARMS, which brought together over 1,000 delegates from across the globe, leading to the unveiling of a ten-year Raw Materials Transformation Roadmap (2025–2034).
Ike-Muonso stated that ARMS 2026 will convene over 1,800 delegates from across 54 African countries and global industrial partners, adding that the second edition of ARMS is designed to overcome the structural hurdles that prevent African feedstock from reaching African manufacturing plants.
On 30 percent Mandatory Value Addition Bill, he stated that RMRDC formulated and championed the landmark legislation awaiting presidential assent, which mandates a statutory minimum of 30 percent value addition on Nigerian raw materials before export.
He added: “By convening logistics authorities, haulage operators, regional bodies, and standardisation organisations, this initiative aims to repair the broken links, establishing reliable corridors that move raw inputs efficiently to local processing hubs without ruinous post-harvest decay or bureaucratic border delays.
“Rather than treating agricultural by-products, mine tailings, scrap metals, and biomass as disposable industrial refuse, a circular industrial policy reclaims and repurposes the materials into primary feedstock for secondary production lines.
“This focus not only reduces raw material overhead costs for emerging factories, but it also embeds sustainable, environmentally sound, and climate-resilient manufacturing practices deep into Africa’s industrial fabric.”
The DG pointed out that the summit will focus on five primary pillars such as logistics, policy, circular sustainability, continental integration, and capital-backed innovation.
Ike-Muonso was optimistic that genuine structural transformation demands a decisive statutory framework that requires natural resources to undergo domestic processing before export.
