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African leaders intensified demands for foreign companies to process minerals locally rather than export raw materials, as surging critical metal demand and US-China competition increases their leverage.
Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu said his government would no longer tolerate the old extractive model: “No one can take any metal out of Nigeria without adding value,” he told the Africa CEO Forum in Kigali. Meanwhile, Gabon’s President Brice Oligui Nguema criticized opaque mining arrangements that leave his country, the world’s second-largest manganese producer, with limited visibility over what foreign companies earn from its resources. Abuja plans to set up at least two Chinese-built lithium processing plants, while Libreville has ordered operators to begin domestic processing by 2029 or risk losing concessions.
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The tougher rhetoric, part of a wider push across Africa to capture more value from refining and manufacturing, comes as oil and mineral producers gain leverage from commodity prices driven up by the Iran war: Oligui Nguema said he had instructed Gabon’s oil minister to raise output and capitalize on higher prices.
But the opportunity is uneven. Gabon’s mature oil sector produces about 227,000 barrels a day and has limited room for rapid expansion. Nigeria’s potential upside is larger, though infrastructure bottlenecks remain acute despite the launch of the $20 billion Dangote Refinery, which still does not fully meet domestic fuel demand.
Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame captured the mood among business and political leaders gathered at the opening plenary of the forum a day earlier urging Africans to stop accepting deal terms set outside the continent. “We can’t just be people waiting to be ripped off,” Kagame said. “We must be able to say no.”