China beats Tesla to lithium deposits in Nigeria

Kaduna, a state in northwestern Nigeria, has selected China’s Ming Xin Mineral Separation Nig Ltd. (MXMS) to build the country’s first lithium-processing plant, with a plan to manufacture batteries for electric vehicles (EVs).

On January 13, the Kaduna Investment Promotion Agency tweeted pictures of its leadership team reviewing the plant’s construction. According to Kaduna State’s mining company, the plant is being built on 9.3 hectares of land. Khalil Nur Khalil, the executive secretary of the state’s investment promotion agency, told Rest of World that the plant is a “game changer,” which he believes will lay the foundation for Nigeria’s ambitions to build “battery factories” and produce “EVs in Kaduna.”

This comes more than five months after the Nigerian government claimed it had rejected Tesla’s proposal to purchase raw lithium from the country.

Ayodeji Adeyemi, special assistant to the minister of mines and steel development, told Rest of World that Tesla’s proposal was rejected because it did not align with the country’s new mining policies.

“Our new mining policy demands that you add some value to raw mineral ores, including lithium, before you export to create jobs and build industries,” Adeyemi said. “They don’t have to turn ores into finished goods. We are only asking them to add some value before exporting.”

In January, Elon Musk, the co-founder and CEO of Tesla, said he sees the company’s biggest competition coming from China. That same month, Tesla even slashed the prices of its cars in China for the second time since September last year.

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), China already controls 60% of the world’s lithium processing and is exploring new frontiers, like Nigeria, to expand its dominance. Kaduna is one of several Nigerian states with lithium deposits. At least seven other states in the country are confirmed to have the mineral — essential in the manufacturing of EV batteries — in commercial quantities.

The Nigerian government has relied significantly on funding from China for several landmark projects, including the Abuja Light Rail project, planned terminal expansions at four major airports, and the National Public Security Communications System project. According to Nigeria’s debt management office, Chinese loans represented 3.94% of the country’s total public debt as of March 2020.

Despite increasing Chinese interest in infrastructure financing and construction, the U.S. is still one of Nigeria’s top five sources of imported capital. In 2021, Nigeria received over $2.2 billion from the U.K., over $677 million from the U.S., and $10 million from China, official records from the National Bureau of Statistics show.

Analysis from the IEA shows that to reach net zero emissions by 2050, about 2 billion EVs and hybrids need to be produced and used. However, global lithium reserves can only make about 2.5 billion EVs. This means that lithium will continue to be a valued, in-demand mineral, given that it has alternative uses apart from making EV batteries. It is used to make batteries for laptops, phones, and digital cameras and is also essential in the manufacturing of planes and trains.

“Nigeria can take advantage of this market by leveraging the domestic value-added process to the mineral,” Oghosa Erhahon, a lawyer and energy transition analyst, told Rest of World. “For example, manufacturing batteries for exports. It’s one thing to limit foreign activities, but not building sustainable infrastructure for lithium mining is not favorable, especially with the national plans to diversify exports.”

By Temitayo Lawal, rest of world  

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In Nigeria's disappearing forests, loggers outnumber trees

Deep in a forest in Nigeria's Ebute Ipare village, Egbontoluwa Marigi sized up a tall mahogany tree, methodically cut it down with his axe and machete, and as it fell with a crackling sound, he surveyed the forest for the next tree.

Around him, the stumps dotting the swampy forest were a reminder of trees that once stood tall but are fast disappearing to illegal logging in Ondo state, southwest Nigeria.

"We could cut down over 15 trees in one location, but now if we manage to see two trees, it will look like a blessing to us," the 61-year-old father of two said. (Photo essay: https://reut.rs/3zkLV8y)

From 2001 to 2021, Nigeria lost 1.14 million hectares of tree cover, equivalent to a 11% decrease in tree cover since 2000 and equal to 587 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, according to Global Forest Watch, a platform that provides data and monitors forests.

After felling the trees, Marigi put markers on them, a message to other loggers that he is the owner. The logs would be transported via creeks and rivers all the way to Nigeria's commercial capital Lagos.

"During the time of our forefathers, we had big trees but sadly what we have now are just small trees and we don't even allow them to mature before we cut them," Marigi said.

Cutting down trees for logging, opening up farmland or to feed energy demand for a growing population is putting pressure on Nigeria's natural forests.

President Muhammadu Buhari told a COP15 meeting in Abidjan, Ivory Coast on May 9 that Nigeria had established a national forestry trust fund to help regenerate the country's forests. That may not be enough as the country loses forests at a faster pace.

"Protecting the forest means protecting ourselves. When we destroy the forest, we destroy humanity," said Femi Obadun, director of forest management for Ondo state's agriculture ministry.

It's something Marigi knows all too well, but his priority is to eke out a living.

Months after cutting the trees, Marigi returns to the forest to pull the logs together and fasten them into rafts. He has a collection of more than 40 logs.

With other loggers, they have put together money to hire a tugboat to pull the rafts through creeks and rivers from Ondo state to Lagos.

Makeshift shelters on the rafts are made from wood and help shield Marigi and his friends from the weather. Food is shared while they belt out local folk songs to lift spirits.

"We don't sleep at night during the journey. We monitor the logs and make sure that (they don't) detach from the tugboat," Marigi told Reuters.

The boat stops at several locations to pick up more loggers and their rafts. A single boat can carry up to a thousand rafts, each containing as much as 30 logs.

Marigi's journey ends at a lagoon in Lagos, where rafts from Ondo state and other parts of the country converge and the logs are processed at sawmills and sold to different users.

By Nyancho Nwa Nri and Fikayo Owoeye

Reuters

Gold miners face dangerous life in Nigeria's 'bandit' country

From dawn, before the sun starts to sear the earth, Biltamnu Sani is already hard at work, pounding away at the dusty soil in his perilous quest for gold.

The mineral-rich earth of Zamfara State, northwest Nigeria, has provided generations of families with the means to make ends meet.

Never easy, it is a work that today is fraught with danger, from the armed groups that rove the region and from the toxic lead that lurks in its soil.

"I've been doing this since I was 12 years old," Sani, now 26, told AFP.

"It's very challenging work, but this is our livelihood."

The mines lie within the reach of heavily-armed groups -- "bandits" in the lexicon of the local authorities -- that have been terrorising this remote region.

Gangs of mainly Fulani herders started cattle rustling and small-scale criminality decades back.

Lately, they have exploited a security vacuum to become essentially an insurgent army of thousands.

As the struggle with farmers over land expanded, other communities took up arms in a spiral of bloodshed that has seen an alarming proliferation of weapons.

The violence claimed more than a thousand lives in 2019, the regional government estimates.

In the scramble for resources, the fighters have increasingly exerted control over artisanal mining -- one of the few reliable sources of income in this impoverished region.

Miners have been forced to share profits and carry out the bidding of the armed groups in order to continue their trade.

Many locals suspect the gunmen are paid by outside interests to secure mineral-rich areas for private gain.

"The challenges in past years have been tough," Sani says.

- 'Just shoot you' -

Nigeria's central government in April announced a ban on mining in the region in a bid to curb the armed groups.

But while some companies closed down operations, local miners have carried on working by themselves.

The local authorities brokered a controversial peace deal around five months back between bandits and vigilantes that has seen some of the gangs disarm.

But the situation at the mines remains perilous.

"You enter some places and people will just shoot you," Ayuba Muhammed, the secretary of a large mining union in the state, told AFP.

The remoteness of the mines and the absence of police outside of Zamfara's capital Gusau have left all trade here brutally exposed to insecurity.

"Some of the mines you see, they have an arrangement with the bandits so that they can stay. In some other areas they cannot even try to go there," Muhammed said.

As he spoke an elderly man in his office poured out small sacks of lilac stones onto a weighing scale.

Extracting minerals from tons of solid rock typically yields only small amounts of cash, but it is still vital income for people in a part of Nigeria where 70 percent of the population are estimated to live in extreme poverty.

The mining industry in the country remains largely artisanal, beset by corruption and poorly regulated.

Successive governments have pledged -- and failed -- to bolster this lucrative sector as an alternative to the oil resources that account for the biggest chunk of Nigeria's income.

- Lead poisoning -

Compounding the insecurity are serious health risks from lead.

The highly poisonous element occurs naturally and in high abundance in Zamfara's gold-rich areas, escaping into the air when the dusty rock is pounded to extract the precious specks.

"People are doing these processes in their homes. Then their children play around in the same areas -- it is extremely dangerous," Simba Tirima, a doctor working at a clinic run by aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in the town of Anka, told AFP.

In the past decade more than 500 children have died from lead poisoning, and many others have suffered long-term ill-health.

Aliyu Usman, four, began to have violent seizures two years ago as his parents often refined gold in their compound.

"He's deaf, you can see he can look around but his gaze is blank," Tirima said, examining the boy at his rudimentary clinic.

"His mother brought him in two years ago and said 'he's not the same anymore, it's like he's not there'."

In 2010, an outbreak of lead poisoning in Zamfara prompted scientists from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to survey 122 villages.

They looked in detail at 56 of these villages, three-quarters of whom were involved in the gold trade.

Of nearly 400 children who provided blood samples, the average amount of lead in the blood was 8.5 microgrammes per litre -- previous research found that lead can damage health at levels as low as five microgrammes per litre.

The surge of deaths in 2010 led to increased awareness and improvements in the way miners worked.

But cases keep coming despite a reduction in the overall numbers.

"There are still pockets of lead exposure," Tirima said. "More needs to be done to bring mining practices into better organised and regulated spaces."

AFP