For over a century, fossil fuels have been the dominant energy source globally, driving transportation, industrial production, and electricity generation. However, despite their utility, the combustion of these fuels (such as crude oil, coal, and natural gas) has inflicted plenty of harm on the environment, human health, and the climate due to the significant green house gas (GHG) emissions and pollutants they produce.
Furthermore, their extraction and production processes, driven by profit-maximising motives, have often resulted in substantial environmental degradation and socio-economic harm, particularly in the local communities and ecosystems where they are concentrated. As the impacts of fossil fuels become harder to ignore, there is a growing call for a shift towards cleaner, renewable sources of energy. These conversations are now spurring international competition for essential minerals to drive this transition. Lithium, in particular, has been identified as a crucial resource and key energy transition metal (ETM) that can greatly support the technologies and systems powered by renewable energy.
Renewable energy, while harnessed from natural sources like the sun, wind, and water, is influenced by environmental and seasonal patterns, often causing fluctuations in power generation. This intermittency has historically been a challenge, raising doubts about whether renewables can fully replace the constant power provided by fossil fuels. This is where lithium plays a crucial role. Lithium-ion batteries, widely used in devices such as smartphones, laptops, and electric vehicles (EVs), are extremely good for storing grid-scale electricity, bolstering and distributing renewable energy more efficiently by ensuring a reliable power supply.
The need for lithium is expected to double by 2025, largely driven by the EV industry. According to market experts, the cost per tonne of lithium rose from £4,600 in 2020 to over £61,000 in 2022. For regions rich in lithium deposits, like Nasarawa in Nigeria, this global interest in Lithium holds the potential for wealth and disaster.
Nigeria’s New Frontier for Lithium Mining
Nigeria is well recognised for its oil wealth and is a leading hydrocarbon producer in Africa. In addition to its rich oil reserves, the country also accounts for substantial deposits of various mineral resources, lithium included. As the world pivots to a lower carbon future in response to climate change and the campaign to reduce GHG emissions, the country is eying to play in the global transition market. Currently, lithium is mined across various regions in Nigeria, including Kogi, Kwara, Ekiti, Nasarawa and Cross Rivers State.
Nasarawa State in the country’s northern region particularly is emerging as a significant hub for lithium extraction. The resource-rich state nicknamed “home of solid minerals,” is blessed with considerable quantities of the highly sought-after lithium. As expected, foreign corporations, especially Chinese entities, have zeroed in on the state for a share and control of this commodity. Testament to this reality, a Chinese company, Avatar New Energy Materials commissioned Africa’s largest lithium processing plant in Endo, Nasarawa, in May. Valued at $100 million, the plant is expected to produce approximately four thousand metric tonnes of lithium per day. Canmax Technologies, a different Chinese firm has also pledged to invest over $200 million in constructing another lithium processing plant, even as other investors continue to bid approval to commence lithium mining in the state.
While lithium mining has been hailed as a potential driver of development by the Nigerian government, with authourities now tightening regulations around the mining of the commodity and stipulating that no company will be allowed to mine and export raw lithium unless they establish processing plants within Nigeria, on-the-ground realities in communities where lithium is extracted are already a cause for concern.
Lithium mining, like any other extractive industries, leaves a toxic trail in its wake. Not only does it require large quantities of water for its processing, which often leads to the appropriation of local waters by miners, harmful chemicals utilised in its extraction can seep into the soil and water, contaminating ecosystems and threatening public health. In Nasarawa, where lithium deposits have attracted both legal and illegal miners alike, tensions are already boiling over as communities find themselves marginalised in the scramble for their resources.
For many, the discovery of lithium on their lands has set off alarms that echo the familiar “resource curse,” manifested clearly in Nigeria’s Niger Delta, where oil wealth has brought poverty, social unrest, and environmental devastation for local communities who bear the brunt of the reckless extraction of it while being excluded from the gains.
Environmental and Social Costs
A field visit by the Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa on October 19 and 20 to Opa and Udege Communities in Nasarawa Local Government Area (LGA) of Nasarawa State, revealed how corporate interests in mining activities are displacing farmers and tearing apart local environments rich in solid minerals, leaving a patchwork of dangerous open pits.
In Udege community, the CAPPA team discovered an abandoned mining site, formerly farmland, which had been taken over by Chinese operatives under the pretext of holding an Exploration License. An Exploration License under Nigeria’s mining laws is the initial step toward securing mining rights, granting the holder permission to explore and assess the viability of mineral deposits within a defined area. It is valid for a limited period and can be renewed. If commercially viable deposits of targeted minerals are identified, the holder may then apply for an Exclusive Prospecting License (EPL) and, eventually, a Mining Lease
In this case, the Chinese operators at the abandoned site bypassed these steps. Once they identified the mineral of interest, they proceeded to recklessly mine and exploit the area without upgrading their license, exploiting loopholes in Nigeria’s regulatory and monitoring system. However, after beginning operations, they discovered that the resources were not present in commercially viable quantities and soon abandoned the venture. Now, the site exists in ruins, littered with open pits, remnants of cassiterite, quartzite, mica schists, and unprocessed lithium.
According to an indigene of the community who spoke to the CAPPA team, members of the community were only employed as casual labourers digging pits without any structured renumeration plan. ‘’The Chinese explorers also cut us off from the pricing and value-added aspects of the mining process. We are dissatisfied with the fact that our ownership of these lands is disregarded, thereby stripping us of control. We need the government to unpack the mining sector and allow local participation,” he said.


Abandoned and open mine pits
Adding to the exclusion of communities is the increasing militarisation of lithium-rich areas in the state. During CAPPA’s visit to another mining site in Opa community, the area was heavily guarded by fierce-looking individuals. CAPPA’s access to the site could only be facilitated by a one-time local councillor of the area who equally faced a tough time convincing the unwelcoming security to allow entry.
Interviews with locals revealed that the presence of these armed individuals, sanctioned by corporate and state interests, has fostered a climate of fear and increased banditry, silencing community efforts to protest exploitative resource extraction practices. Residents also shared that Chinese entities, often in collusion with armed local cooperatives and state officials, employ intimidation and brute force to displace both land and farm owners sitting atop lithium deposits.


A local woman scavenges for precious rocks and stones at the Opa mining site
Reacting to these findings, Alhaji Ibrahim Usman Jibril, Emir of Nasarawa and former Minister of State and Environment, informed the CAPPA team during a meeting at his palace that the emirate council is actively engaging with communities to finalise draft proposals that would strengthen their position in negotiations with mining companies. These proposals would reflect the collective aspirations of locals, demanding a “first-class face lift for communities hosting minerals”, including a reliable supply of 40 litres of water daily from industrial boreholes, solar powered clinics, classrooms, and shops to support the local economy and community resilience.
While this initiative by the emirate council is commendable, the challenge remains that without substantive political commitment and regulatory frameworks centered on protecting community interests, Nasarawa’s people as well as other mining communities across the country will continue to face the exploitation typical of unbridled capitalist ventures in extractive industries.


The CAPPA team with the Emir of Nasarawa
Way Ahead
In the context of lithium mining, community rights, equitable benefits-sharing frameworks, and environmental protections such as the strict enforcement of environmental impact assessments (EIAs), must become central to the policy and regulatory discourse, particularly given the historical resource exploitation patterns in Nigeria that have impoverished resource-rich regions.
Additionally, the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) Act of 2007 empowers authorities to dismantle illegal mining camps. To this end, CAPPA continues to advocate for robust enforcement against unauthorised mining camps in Nasarawa State and elsewhere in Nigeria. Without stringent monitoring, these camps foster the theft of communal resources, environmental degradation, and exploitative labour practices that undermine the rights of local communities.
In navigating the lithium boom, Nasarawa has the chance to model ethical resource management for Nigeria’s extractive industries, reclaiming the benefits of its mineral wealth for the people rather than allowing unchecked exploitation by external interests.
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