【Nigeria】Northern Elders Forum Criticizes Plan for Gold Refinery in Lagos

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Editor’s Note

The Northern Elders Forum has renewed its objection to the siting of a gold refinery in Lagos, framing it as part of a broader pattern of economic marginalization. The group is urging northern leaders to break their silence on the issue.

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Forum Reiterates Opposition, Warns of Economic Marginalization

The Northern Elders Forum (NEF) has reiterated its firm opposition to the planned location of a gold refinery in Lagos State. The forum also issued a warning to northern political leaders, governors, and elites against remaining silent on what it describes as the economic marginalization of the region.

Government Clarifies Project Ownership

This renewed stance follows an earlier statement from the NEF, which warned that siting the refinery outside Northern Nigeria’s major gold-producing areas constitutes economic marginalization. This criticism came after the Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dele Alake, rejected claims that the Federal Government violated the federal character principle.
In a statement on Sunday, the Minister’s Special Assistant on Media, Segun Tomori, clarified that the refinery referenced by the NEF is not a federal government project. He stated that the facility is a private initiative by Kian Smith, a mining company wholly owned by private investors.

NEF Spokesperson Outlines Serious Implications

However, in a statement released by its spokesperson, Professor Abubakar Jiddere, on Thursday, the Forum argued that locating the refinery outside the major gold-producing areas in Northern Nigeria carries serious economic and security implications. He contended that the decision was deliberate and not a policy oversight.

“The decision to locate Nigeria’s gold refinery in Lagos while gold is mined from Northern soil is not a policy error. It is not an oversight. It is a deliberate act of economic dispossession. It strips value addition from Northern communities, exports opportunity to the already privileged center, and condemns the source regions to poverty, unemployment, and perpetual insecurity.”
“To again remove the locus of value addition from these communities is to perpetuate an extractive model reminiscent of colonial economics, where raw materials are sourced from the periphery, and wealth is accumulated at the center. This is not development. It is internal colonialism.”
“This injustice is systemic, not accidental. For decades, Northern Nigeria has been reduced to a triple extraction zone: the supplier of raw minerals, the supplier of agricultural produce, and the supplier of cheap labour, while processing, branding, financing, and industrial infrastructure are consistently sited elsewhere.”
Accusations of Extractive Model and Constitutional Violation

He accused the Federal Government of concentrating industrial benefits in Lagos while extracting raw materials from the North, thereby denying mining communities the benefits of value addition. According to him, this decision reinforces an extractive economic model where processing, financing, and industrial infrastructure are located far from resource-bearing regions.

“The persistent concentration of strategic economic assets in Lagos has fuelled spatial inequality, weakened trust in the federal system and heightened perceptions of economic marginalisation in the North.”
“While derivation has often been framed in fiscal terms, its underlying philosophy is unmistakable: resource origin must matter in the distribution of economic benefits. To deny gold-producing regions the industrial and developmental benefits of refining is to hollow out the derivation principle and reduce it to a token accounting exercise.”

He cited Sections 14(3) and 16 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), which he said were designed to prevent the concentration of national advantages and to promote social justice and equality of opportunity.

Criticism of Northern Leadership’s Silence

He criticized what he described as the silence of Northern governors, lawmakers, ministers, and traditional leaders, stating that history would judge leaders who fail to defend the economic interests of their region.

“Where are the Northern governors who invoke unity while accepting economic strangulation? Where are the senators, ministers, party chieftains, and traditional power brokers who enjoy proximity to power but cannot defend the economic dignity of their people?”
“If Northern elites cannot speak when their region is systematically excluded from mineral and agricultural value chains, history will record that today’s leadership traded regional dignity for access to political favour and power.”
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⏰ Published on: January 22, 2026