The Northern Elders Forum (NEF) have accused the federal government of locating the National Gold Refinery in Lagos State. The NEF published an open letter signed by its spokesperson, Professor Abubakar Jika Jiddere and addressed to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and members of the Federal Executive Council. The letter, dated 18th January 2026, was titled “Open Letter to the Federal Government of Nigeria on the Location of the National Gold Refinery, Federal Character, Derivation and the Deepening Crisis of Structural Inequality”. The Minister of Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dele Alake, had, on Tuesday, Jan. 13, during a meeting with the Saudi Arabian Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources, Ibrahim Al-Khorayef, held ahead of the Future Minerals Forum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, announced the commencement of operations at a high-purity gold refining plant in Lagos. The minister, in a statement by his media aide, Segun Tomori, had also said three additional gold refineries that were at different stages of development across the country, and that a $600 million lithium processing plant located in Nasarawa State was ready for commissioning. The NEF, in its letter, said the decision to locate the gold refinery in Lagos must be interrogated beyond administrative convenience. The letter read, Your Excellencies, the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) issues this open letter not as a rhetorical protest, but as a constitutional, economic, and political intervention necessitated by the Federal Governments decision to locate Nigerias gold refinery in Lagos State, notwithstanding the well-established fact that Nigerias commercially viable gold deposits are overwhelmingly located in Northern Nigeria. This decision must be interrogated beyond administrative convenience. Section 14(3) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended), enshrines the federal character principle, mandating that the composition and conduct of government affairs must reflect Nigerias diversity and prevent the dominance or exclusion of any group or region. While often narrowly applied to appointments, the spirit of Section 14(3) is broader: it is intended to prevent structural concentration of national advantages in ways that marginalise sections of the federation. Strategic economic infrastructure is as consequential to federal balance as political office. Furthermore, Section 16(1)(b) obliges the State to control the national economy in such a manner as to secure the maximum welfare, freedom and happiness of every citizen on the basis of social justice and equality of status and opportunity. The forum said a policy that extracts mineral wealth from one region while systematically locating value addition, industrial jobs, and capital accumulation elsewhere fundamentally contradicts this directive. It said most critically, Section 162(2) of the Constitution recognises the principle of derivation, affirming that resource-bearing areas are entitled to a fair share of the benefits arising from the resources extracted from their land. While derivation has often been framed in fiscal terms, its underlying philosophy is unmistakable: resource origin must matter in the distribution of economic benefits, the letter added. The forum stressed that 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. Part of the letter also read, International best practice in extractive economies is unequivocal. In jurisdictions such as Australia, Canada, South Africa, Ghana, and Chile, primary processing and refining facilities are deliberately located proximate to mining sites. This approach minimises logistical inefficiencies, strengthens regulatory oversight, curbs smuggling, integrates artisanal miners into formal value chains, and most importantly anchors regional industrialisation. Nigerias decision to refine gold far from its source is therefore not merely unconventional; it is economically regressive. 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. Such a model is incompatible with modern federalism, incompatible with constitutional equity, and incompatible with Nigerias stated development objectives. Northern Nigeria, particularly states such as Zamfara, Kebbi, Niger, Kaduna, Katsina and adjoining areas, has absorbed the environmental degradation, social dislocation, insecurity, and criminal networks associated with unregulated mining. Yet, when the moment arises to locate refining infrastructure that would create skilled employment, stimulate technology transfer, and catalyse industrial clusters, the region is once again bypassed. This is not an abstract policy choice; it is a lived injustice. The forum said the federal government must also confront the political implications of this decision, stating that Nigeria already suffers from acute spatial inequality, where strategic federal assets, industrial concentration, and economic power are disproportionately clustered in Lagos and its environs. This persistent imbalance has fuelled political resentment, weakened trust in the federal compact, and reinforced the perception of deliberate economic marginalisation of the North. Each additional decision that deepens this imbalance pushes the federation closer to a legitimacy crisis. It is instructive that successive governments have insisted correctly that oil refineries should be sited near crude-producing regions, partly in recognition of host-community justice and operational efficiency. The refusal to apply the same logic to gold exposes a troubling policy inconsistency that Nigerians cannot ignore, the letter further read. The forum, therefore, demanded that Nigeria must adopt a decentralised, resource-proximate refining framework, ensuring that at least one primary gold refinery must be located within Northern Nigerias gold-producing corridor, with Lagos limited, if necessary, to trading, certification, or export functions. Anything short of this, the NEF said, constitutes structural exclusion masquerading as national policy. This letter is not an appeal to sentiment. It is a constitutional warning. Federations that ignore economic justice in the distribution of strategic assets eventually confront political consequences far more destabilising than the cost of policy correction. We urge the federal government to act not out of concession, but out of constitutional duty, economic reason, and commitment to national cohesion. In its direct message to northern elites, political leaders, and stakeholders, NEF said history would not honour those who saw injustice clearly and chose comfort over courage, while describing the decision to locate Nigerias gold refinery in Lagos while gold is mined from Northern soil as neither a policy error nor an oversight but a deliberate act of economic dispossession. The forum added that history would not absolve leaders who mistook silence for wisdom and access for influence, stressing that The record is being written now. Silence will not be misunderstood. It will be remembered as betrayal.The post Northern elders oppose location of national gold refinery in Lagos; condemn policy that “extracts mineral wealth from one region while systematically locating value addition elsewhere” appeared first on Linda Ikeji Blog.
