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NIGERIA TO BECOME INVESTORS’ DESTINATION IN SOLID MINERALS- DELE ALAKE

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Dele Alake
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Minister for Solid Minerals Development, Dele Alake, said on Monday, April 29, that the Nigerian government was working to ensure that the country becomes an investor’s destination in the area of solid minerals development.

He also said that communities, where solid minerals are extracted from, must henceforth derive maximum benefit from solid minerals exploration.

The minister spoke at a two-day national stakeholders’ roundtable on sustainable development of the mining industry organised by the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies in Abuja.

He said plans to process raw minerals locally will now be part of the conditions for obtaining mining licences in the country, adding that the government will no longer accept what he called pit to port system in the mining sector.

The Minister also said that the Minister has trained and deployed about 2,160 Mining Marines to all states of the federation to help fight the activities of illegal miners.

He said the government was putting in place concrete measures that would shift attention away from fossil fuels to solid minerals as a way of generating revenue for the government.

Alake said that conscious of the limitation of time and resources, the Ministry has developed a Seven-Point Agenda, a roadmap for the transformation of the Mining Sector for national prosperity and international competitiveness.

He listed the agenda as the establishment of the National Solid Minerals Corporation, the establishment of the Mining Police, the gathering of comprehensive data on Nigeria’s minerals to de-risk the sector, and aggressive and pro-active promotion of Nigeria’s mineral endowment to attract investors.

Others are combating illegal mining by replacing artisanal mining with cooperative mining, value Addition through industrial processing of extracted minerals and reduction of export of raw minerals, and Human development of mining communities through enforcement of Community Development Agreements.

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Naira depreciates against dollar across official, black markets after Easter holidays

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Nigeria’s currency, the naira, depreciated against the dollar at the official and parallel foreign exchange markets upon the resumption of work after Easter holidays.

The Central Bank of Nigeria’s data showed that it weakened to N1,602.63 per dollar on Tuesday from N1,599.93 exchanged on Thursday last week.

This means that it declined by N2.7 against the dollar on a day-to-day basis.

Similarly, the naira fell to N1620 per dollaron Tuesday from N1610 at the weekend.

The N1,620 dollar exchange rate at the black market is the same rate recorded on Thursday before the Easter holidays.

The development comes following the sustained slump in the dollar amid threats to US Federal Reserve independence and the tariff war.

 

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US: Tariffs on China will come down substantially – Trump announces

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President Donald Trump of the United States has said that high tariffs on goods from China will come down substantially.

He said the tariffs would crash but won’t go down to 0%.

The President stated this during a White House news conference on Tuesday.

Trump stated this in response to earlier comments same day by treasury secretary, Scott Bessent.

Bessent had made it clear that the high tariffs were unsustainable.

Recall that the US had placed import taxes of 145% on China and in response the Asian giants retaliated with 125% tariffs on US goods.

Trump had announced what he described as a reciprocal tariffs on nations across the globe, causing the stock market to stumble and interest rates to increase on US debt.

“We’re doing fine with China,” Trump said.

Despite his high tariffs, Trump said he would be “very nice” to China and not play hardball with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

He added, “We’re going to live together very happily and ideally work together.”

Trump said that the final tariff rate with China would come down “substantially” from the current 145%, saying “It won’t be that high, not going to be that high.”

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Nigeria’s electricity generation records steady drop – Report

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Nigeria’s electricity generation peak has recorded a steady drop to 4,742.20 megawatts in the past three days.

This is according to the National Grid performance report from Thursday, 17 to 19 April 2025.

The report showed that electricity generation dropped by 531 megawatts in the last three days.

Accordingly, the system performance data indicated that the electricity generation peak stood at 5,273.80 megawatts on Thursday but dropped to 5,131.20 megawatts and 4,742.80 megawatts on Friday and Saturday.

The development comes days after the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, announced that Nigeria hit its highest energy peak of 5,801.63 MW.

On Thursday, Adelabu reiterated that the government is doing everything to avert a collapse of the country’s power sector and plans to partly offset the N4 trillion owed to the electricity generation companies.

For more than a decade, Nigeria has continued to grapple with power sector challenges for a population of over 200 million.

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