Speaking at the launch in Abuja, the Executive Secretary and Chief Executive Officer of SMDF, Fatima Umaru Shinkafi, outlined the vision behind the programme, describing it as a strategic intervention designed to unlock investment, improve geological data generation, strengthen local value addition, and help transform promising mining ideas into investment-ready projects.
Here is the full text:
The Honourable Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dr. Henry Dele Alake; The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Solid Minerals Development; Heads of Agencies and Parastatals in the Solid Minerals sector; Deputy-Governor, Economic Policy of the CBN; Captains of industry, investors and operators; Vice Chancellors, researchers and members of the academic community; Distinguished members of the press; Distinguished ladies and gentlemen.
All protocols duly observed.
It is my honour and privilege, on behalf of the Management and Staff of the Solid Minerals Development Fund, to welcome you most warmly to the launch of the EMERGE Programme. Your presence here this morning is a clear affirmation of our shared belief in the promise of Nigeria’s solid minerals sector, and I thank each of you for honouring our invitation.
EMERGE, the Early-Stage Mineral Exploration and Research Grant Endowment, is a competitively awarded grant facility designed to address one of the most persistent gaps in our sector: the shortage of early-stage capital for exploration, for critical minerals, and for research and development. I will not pre-empt the detailed presentations that follow, save to say that EMERGE places catalytic funding directly in the hands of our explorers, our universities and our research institutions so that more of our promising projects can move from potential to proof.
EMERGE, however, does not stand alone. It is the latest expression of a deliberate reform agenda that the Fund has pursued to reposition mining finance in Nigeria. Established as Nigeria’s sovereign fund to catalyse private sector-led investment in the sector, the SMDF invests to de-risk projects, to crowd in private capital, and to build the data and capacity on which sound investment depends. We pursue this mandate across our investment windows for growth, for opportunities, and for responsible mining.
Through our strategic partnership with the Africa Finance Corporation, we established the AFC-SMDF Project Development Facility, a joint platform that co-funds and co-develops commercial-scale mining projects and provides the technical advisory needed to carry them from early stage to bankability. That SMDF-AFC partnership has recently produced a landmark of which the entire sector can be proud: the 1.5 million metric tonnes per annum alumina refinery project, the single largest funding commitment in the history of the Fund and the biggest Nigerian mining investment ever, projected to add significantly to national output, to Gross Domestic Product and to foreign exchange earnings, while anchoring value addition here at home. The Fund has also supported the sourcing and delivery of responsibly mined, internationally certified gold to the Central Bank of Nigeria, lifting our national reserves and supporting macroeconomic stability, and demonstrating that reform in this sector translates into tangible value for the nation. Our CBN partners are here today, and we thank them for their collaboration.
None of this would have been possible without leadership and vision. Permit me, therefore, to express the deep and sincere appreciation of the Fund to our Honourable Minister, Dr. Henry Dele Alake, whose steady support and strategic drive have given this sector new direction and renewed momentum. The Seven-Point Agenda that he has championed, with its emphasis on reliable big data on our priority minerals, on local value addition and processing, and on transparency and investor confidence, has provided the policy compass for everything we do. We are extremely grateful, to our father, His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, whose Renewed Hope Agenda has placed economic diversification and the rebuilding of our solid minerals sector at the centre of national policy and under whose vision these reforms have flourished. I must also acknowledge our Permanent Secretary, Engr. Faruk Yusuf Yabo, FNSE, whose steady administrative direction and support since his arrival have strengthened the work of the Fund and who continues to urge us to widen our funding opportunities and to offer practical ideas for doing so. EMERGE, the AFC-SMDF Project Development Facility and the alumina project are practical instruments of the Seven-Point Agenda and, more broadly, of the President’s Renewed Hope Agenda, and we are appreciative, Honourable Minister, for the confidence you have placed in the Fund to help deliver it.
This brings me to the heart of our purpose as a Fund. The SMDF exists to unlock financing across the full life of a mineral project. EMERGE strengthens the earliest link in that chain by funding exploration and research; the Project Development Facility advances projects toward construction and production; and initiatives such as the alumina refinery and our responsible gold sourcing secure value addition and returns at the top of the chain. Seen together, these are not isolated interventions but a single, coherent continuum, each policy building on the one before it, and all of them aligned to the same national objective: a diversified, productive and prosperous economy built on solid minerals.
Distinguished guests, the era of exporting our mineral wealth in raw form is drawing to a close. With the launch of EMERGE, we take another deliberate step toward a sector that explores with confidence, adds value at home, and rewards the nation that owns these resources.
Permit me, finally, to thank everyone whose work brought this launch together at short notice. To our Communications team, to the staff of PwC, our Programme Administration Partner, and to the teams across the Solid Minerals Development Fund, I offer my sincere gratitude. Your dedication and long hours made it possible to meet the Honourable Minister’s objectives, and this occasion is a credit to your effort.
Once again, on behalf of the Solid Minerals Development Fund, I welcome you warmly to this occasion. I thank our Honourable Minister for gracing it with his presence and his support, and I wish us all a productive and memorable event.
