By Lemmy Ughegbe, Ph.D
Nigeria is a poor country sitting on extraordinary wealth.
Beneath the feet of millions of Nigerians struggling to afford food, healthcare, education and decent shelter lie mineral resources the Federal Government estimates to be worth about $700 billion. Gold, lithium and other critical minerals increasingly coveted by industries powering the twenty first century are buried beneath a country still searching for the prosperity its natural endowments have repeatedly promised.
That contradiction should haunt us as Nigeria signs a new critical minerals framework with the United States.
The agreement, signed in New York by the Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dele Alake, and United States Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, seeks to encourage American investment across Nigeria’s mining value chain, including exploration, mineral development and processing, infrastructure and technical capacity.
There is much to welcome. Particularly encouraging is Alake’s declaration that Nigeria does not intend to remain merely a source of raw materials from which other countries create value. Government says the ambition is to strengthen local processing, develop skills, create jobs and expand opportunities for Nigerian businesses.
Those are the right objectives. But Nigeria has been wealthy beneath the ground before.
For more than six decades, oil promised transformation. Hundreds of billions of dollars flowed from the Niger Delta into government accounts, yet many communities sitting above that wealth remained poor, environmentally damaged and inadequately developed. Nigeria exported crude oil while importing refined petroleum products for years, surrendering much of the value that should have been created at home.
We cannot afford to reproduce that history with solid minerals.
The global race for critical minerals presents Nigeria with an unusual opportunity. Lithium, rare earths and other strategic minerals are increasingly important to batteries, electric vehicles, renewable energy, electronics and defence industries. Competition for secure mineral supply chains gives countries possessing these resources bargaining power.
Nigeria must use that leverage wisely.
The question should not simply be how much foreign investment we can attract, but how much Nigerian value every dollar of that investment creates. How much processing will take place here? How many Nigerians will acquire technical skills? How much technology will be transferred? And what will communities living above these resources have to show when the minerals beneath them are gone?
These questions are urgent because the reality of mining in Nigeria remains far removed from the glittering figures announced at investment conferences. Illegal and informal mining remain widespread. Smuggling deprives government of revenue. Environmental degradation threatens communities, while poverty drives vulnerable Nigerians into hazardous artisanal operations.
The recent tragedy involving suspected illegal miners in Niger State makes the contradiction especially difficult to ignore. Reports indicate that many of those arrested were teenagers.
Whatever eventually emerges from investigations into their deaths in custody, another question precedes their arrest: why were children and teenagers working around dangerous mining operations in the first place?
There is something fundamentally wrong when minerals beneath a community can be worth billions of dollars while children above them are poor enough to risk their lives digging for fragments of that wealth.
Government appears conscious of some of these problems. Alake has proposed a Mine Emergency and Community Development Fund as well as an African safety facility intended to help formalise artisanal mining, encourage cooperatives and improve safety.
Formalisation is important because simply criminalising artisanal miners will not solve the problem. Many are poor Nigerians operating at the lowest and most dangerous end of a lucrative value chain from which more powerful actors often derive greater rewards. They need regulation, training, cooperatives, access to legitimate markets and basic safety standards. Criminal networks exploiting them and illegally exporting Nigeria’s resources require a different response.
There must also be transparency. If Nigeria’s mineral wealth is entering a new era, citizens should be able to follow the money from licence to mine, from mine to processor, from processor to export and from revenue to government accounts.
Mining licences cannot become political patronage. Communities cannot discover that rights over the land beneath their homes have been allocated without meaningful consultation. Environmental obligations cannot exist merely on paper, and agreements with investors must contain enforceable provisions for rehabilitation when mining ends.
Most importantly, host communities must not become spectators to wealth extracted from beneath their feet.
Nigeria should have learnt this lesson from the Niger Delta. Communities that see enormous wealth leaving their land while poverty, pollution and unemployment remain behind will eventually question the legitimacy of the system. Community development must therefore be built into the economics of mining from the beginning, not introduced years later as compensation for accumulated grievances.
The Nigeria US framework can be an important opportunity. American capital, technology and expertise can help Nigeria develop a modern mining industry. Nigeria needs investment, and there is nothing inherently wrong with foreign companies earning legitimate returns on capital and risk.
But partnership must mean more than extraction.
The old model in which Africa digs, ships and watches others manufacture must end. A tonne of mineral ore leaving Nigeria represents one value. What that mineral becomes after processing, refining and manufacturing represents something considerably greater. The difference is where industries, technology, skills and prosperity are built.
That is the wealth Nigeria has too often exported.
Alake has acknowledged that signing an agreement is the easy part and implementation the harder task. That may prove to be the most important observation surrounding this framework. Nigeria has never lacked ambitious agreements or declarations of intent. Our graveyard of economic promises is already overcrowded.
What matters is what remains in Nigeria after the speeches in New York are forgotten.
The minerals beneath Nigeria ultimately belong to Nigerians. Success will not be measured merely by billions of dollars in investment attracted or tonnes of ore exported, but by the value created above the ground.
If this new mineral economy produces Nigerian industries, skilled jobs, safer mining, thriving businesses and prosperous host communities, the country may finally turn geological fortune into human development.
But if we export the ore, export the value and leave behind poverty, dangerous pits and damaged communities, we will merely have exchanged one resource curse for another.
Nigeria already knows what it means to possess enormous wealth beneath widespread poverty.
We should not have to learn that lesson twice.

Lemmy Ughegbe, Ph.D, FIMC, CMC
Email: lemmyughegbeofficial@gmail.com
WhatsApp ONLY: +2348069716645

By Dr. Omolaraeni Olaosebikan

There is a particular kind of satisfaction that comes with paying less. In an economy where households are watching every naira, the cheaper option can feel not merely attractive but responsible. A refrigerator, television, washing machine or air conditioner appears to perform the same basic function as the more expensive alternative, so the arithmetic seems obvious: why pay more? But the arithmetic of purchase price is not always the arithmetic of value. Sometimes what looks like a saving at the point of purchase simply postpones the real cost.
That distinction matters increasingly in Nigeria, where pressure on household income has understandably made price one of the strongest influences on consumer choice. Yet the cheapest product on the shelf is not necessarily the least expensive product to own. The better question is what that product will cost over its useful life: how efficiently it consumes energy, how frequently it requires repair, whether replacement parts and competent service are available, how long its critical components are designed to last, what protection sits behind the warranty, and how quickly the owner may have to return to the market to buy another one. This is the difference between price and total cost of ownership.
We have a familiar expression for getting this calculation wrong: being kobo wise and naira foolish. It captures a behaviour that becomes especially tempting during difficult economic periods. When money is tight, immediate affordability naturally dominates attention. But repeated replacement can turn an apparently prudent decision into an expensive cycle. A product bought cheaply and replaced several times may ultimately cost more than a better-engineered alternative that remains useful for much longer. The hidden bill is not only the replacement price. It can include repairs, wasted energy, lost time, disrupted routines and the inconvenience of a product failing when it is most needed.
This is where innovation needs to be understood differently. Consumers are often presented with innovation as spectacle: another feature, another screen, another piece of technology and another reason for a higher price. That framing does innovation a disservice.
Useful innovation should solve a problem.
In a market such as Nigeria, that might mean better energy management, technology designed to cope with demanding operating conditions, smarter preservation of food, more efficient washing, easier maintenance, stronger component protection or products adapted to the way people actually live. Innovation earns its premium when it reduces friction, waste or long-term cost. Technology that merely decorates a specification sheet is not enough.
Durability, too, deserves to return to the centre of the consumer conversation. For years, the language of consumption has increasingly celebrated novelty: what is new, fashionable, cheaper or immediately available. Yet some of the strongest brands in any category are built on a much older promise — that what you buy today will still justify the decision years from now. That promise cannot rest on advertising alone. It has to be supported by engineering, warranties that mean something, accessible after-sales service, spare parts, competent technicians and a company prepared to remain accountable after the transaction has been completed.
The after-sales question is particularly important because the true relationship between a consumer and a durable-goods brand often begins after payment. The product may perform perfectly for years, but when something does go wrong, the consumer discovers whether the brand’s promise has infrastructure behind it. Is there somewhere to call? Can the fault be diagnosed? Are genuine parts obtainable? Is the warranty understandable? Can the product be repaired rather than prematurely discarded? These are not peripheral customer-service questions. They are part of the economic value of the product itself.
This also explains why two products that appear comparable on a shop floor may not really be comparable. One price may include years of research, energy-saving technology, stronger components, product testing, a service network and longer warranty support. Another may simply offer a lower entry price. Neither price alone tells the consumer enough. The task, therefore, is not to persuade people that expensive automatically means better. It does not.
A high price can be poor value just as easily as a low price can be excellent value.
The more intelligent principle is that every premium should be able to explain itself in benefits the consumer can actually experience.
What Nigeria needs, perhaps, is greater value literacy. We speak frequently about financial literacy, but consumers also need the confidence to interrogate value: not “Which one is cheapest today?” but “Which one is likely to serve me best for the money I will spend over time?” That means comparing energy consumption, warranty terms, repairability, service availability, expected durability and the usefulness of the technology being offered. It also places a responsibility on manufacturers and retailers. If a product costs more because it is genuinely engineered to deliver more, brands should communicate that difference clearly, specifically and credibly rather than hiding behind lifestyle advertising and technical jargon.
There is a wider sustainability argument here as well. A culture of frequent replacement creates waste. Products designed for longer useful lives, supported by repair ecosystems and used efficiently can reduce the pressure to discard and repurchase. The economic interest of the household and the environmental interest of society can therefore meet in the same place: buying fewer things badly and more things intelligently.
Perhaps the smarter question, then, is not simply, “How much does this cost me today?” but “What value will this still be giving me tomorrow?” In an economy where every naira matters, consumers have every reason to be price-conscious.
But price consciousness should not become value blindness.
The cheapest choice can sometimes prove remarkably expensive when replacement, repairs, energy use, lost time and poor after-sales support are eventually counted. A bargain is only a bargain if it continues to deliver value after the excitement of paying less has disappeared. Because ultimately, real affordability is not about paying the least at the point of purchase; it is about getting enduring value from what we choose to pay for. And that is why the narrative matters.

Dr. Omolaraeni Olaosebikan
Strategic Communications & Reputation Management Expert | Founder, The Narrative Matters®

By Lemmy Ughegbe, Ph.D

There are questions that should never be difficult for a government to answer. Who was paid? How much was paid? When was the money paid? And where is the evidence that the person for whom the money was intended actually received it?

These are elementary questions of public accounting. They become even more important when the money belongs to some of the poorest people in Nigeria.

Yet, according to the 2024 Annual Report on Non-Compliance and Internal Control Weaknesses by the Auditor General of the Federation, the Federal Government could not provide sufficient evidence to establish that ₦33.751 billion recorded as cash transfers to more than 3.29 million vulnerable households and beneficiaries actually reached genuine recipients.

Let us be careful from the outset. The Auditor General did not say ₦33.751 billion was stolen. He did not establish that the entire sum disappeared.

What the audit established is sufficiently troubling without exaggeration: the National Cash Transfer Office could not provide auditors with adequate evidence to verify that the money reached the people it was supposed to reach.

And therein lies the scandal of accountability.

The electronic transfers were recorded as having been made to 3,295,207 households and beneficiaries drawn from the National Social Register and enrolled on the National Beneficiary Register across 35 states in 2023.

But when auditors came knocking, the payment vouchers did not contain the full details of beneficiaries. More remarkably, the Remita statement needed to reconcile the payments with those listed on the registers was not presented for audit.

According to the Auditor General, attempts to obtain access to the statement were obstructed by accounts staff.

Pause there.

Government says it paid. Government has registers containing those it says it paid. There is an electronic payment platform through which the transactions should be traceable.

Yet government’s own constitutionally established auditor could not obtain the records required to connect those three points conclusively.

So, who got the poor man’s money?

That question assumes greater significance when we remember the economic circumstances in which these payments were supposed to provide relief.

Millions of Nigerians are struggling with the costs of food, transportation, healthcare, rent and education. For such households, a government cash transfer is not an accounting entry.

It can be food. It can be medicine. It can keep a child in school. It can be the thin line between survival and desperation.

That is why money appropriated for the poor carries a moral burden beyond the ordinary obligations of public expenditure.

Stealing from government is corruption. But allowing money intended for desperately poor citizens to disappear into an administrative fog, whether through incompetence, negligence or criminality, is something even more disturbing.

And the ₦33.751 billion is not the only cause for concern.

The Auditor General also queried ₦36.744 billion paid through 215 payment vouchers without the required prepayment audit. Another ₦4.616 billion in expenditures was unsupported by paid vouchers presented for examination. Other queries involved enrolment payments, procurement and expenditure records.

Taken together, the findings raise serious questions about the controls surrounding an institution entrusted with protecting Nigeria’s most vulnerable citizens.

The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project has consequently called for investigations into more than ₦78.8 billion in expenditures connected with the social protection programmes.

Human rights lawyer Femi Falana (SAN) has separately asked the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to investigate the ₦33.75 billion and recover funds if investigations establish that money was diverted.

Those calls deserve attention. But Nigeria must go further than another investigation that dominates headlines for several weeks before disappearing into the country’s institutional memory.

The fundamental question is whether Nigeria can build a social protection system that citizens can independently trust.

This matters because government is not abandoning cash transfers. Nor should it.

Social protection is indispensable in a country where millions struggle with poverty, particularly after economic reforms have imposed significant hardship on households.

That makes the Auditor General’s findings not merely a story about yesterday’s money. They are a warning about tomorrow’s billions.

Before more money travels through the same machinery, Nigerians deserve to know whether the weaknesses already identified have been repaired.

Government should therefore provide a comprehensive and verifiable audit trail of the disputed transfers while protecting beneficiaries’ personal data. Accountability does not require publishing poor people’s bank details.

What it requires is verifiable information: how many beneficiaries were paid in each state, how much was transferred, how many transactions succeeded, how many failed, what sums were reversed and whether every payment can be reconciled against an authenticated beneficiary.

Technology makes this possible. Indeed, technology is precisely why the inability to verify electronic transfers is so troubling.

Cash can disappear without footprints. Digital payments are supposed to leave them. Every transaction generates data. Every transfer should have a trail.

Nigeria cannot celebrate digital government when money is being disbursed and suddenly rediscover analogue confusion when auditors ask for evidence.

There is another institution that must not escape responsibility: the National Assembly. The Auditor General submits reports so that Parliament, particularly its Public Accounts Committees, can demand explanations and enforce accountability.

Audit reports should not become annual catalogues of unanswered questions. Officials responsible for the queried expenditures should appear before the appropriate committees. Records should be produced. Transactions should be reconciled.

Where explanations are satisfactory, Nigerians should be told. Where money cannot be accounted for, it should be recovered. And where evidence establishes criminal conduct, those responsible should face prosecution regardless of office or political affiliation.

There is an even larger issue.

For decades, Nigeria’s poorest citizens have frequently existed as numbers in government programmes. Millions of beneficiaries. Millions of households. Billions disbursed. Thousands empowered.

The numbers are announced at podiums and displayed in colourful presentations. But the real test of social investment is not how much government says it has spent. It is whether the intended citizen received the benefit.

A government may truthfully say that ₦33.751 billion left its account. That does not answer the more important question. Where did it arrive?

At a time when Nigerians are repeatedly being asked to endure the consequences of economic reform, accountability becomes even more important.

Government cannot preach sacrifice to citizens while tolerating opacity in programmes designed to cushion that sacrifice.

It cannot demand patience from the poor and provide incomplete records when asked what became of money appropriated for them.

The Auditor General has asked the questions. Civil society has amplified them.

Government must now produce the records, reconcile the payments, identify failures, recover whatever cannot be accounted for and prosecute wrongdoing where the evidence establishes it.

Because behind every unverified social intervention payment is potentially a hungry family that government says it helped.

There may be a mother who never received the money recorded against her existence. There may be a child whose hardship was supposed to have been cushioned. There may be a citizen whose poverty has become somebody else’s statistic.

And until the audit trail is complete, one question deserves to follow every announcement of billions spent fighting poverty in Nigeria: Who got the poor man’s money?

Lemmy Ughegbe, Ph.D, FIMC, CMC

Email: lemmyughegbeofficial@gmail.com

WhatsApp ONLY: +2348069716645