President Bola Tinubu says extracting raw minerals from Africa for refining by developed countries has worsened underdevelopment on the continent.
Tinubu spoke on Tuesday at an event organised by the Africa Minerals Strategy Group on the margins of the 79th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).
In his keynote address, Tinubu, who was represented by Vice-President Kashim Shettima, said the scenario is lamentable.
Tinubu said there is a need for a new era of commercial partnerships, diplomatic relations, and economic collaboration between Africa and the rest of the world.
The president added that prior to colonisation, Africans and their European counterparts were “friends, business allies and mutual sovereigns”.
“A situation in which the raw minerals are extracted from our countries, exported, refined and sold to us as finished products merely consolidates the foundations of our misery and pushes us further down the depths of underdevelopment,” he said.
“Before Africa was plundered and overpowered with the technological innovation of the gun, our ancestors and their counterparts from Europe were friends, business allies and mutual sovereigns.
“Until the visitors became greedy and upset the cordial harmony by unleashing the trans-atlantic slave trade, the most devastating depopulation that mankind has ever witnessed.”
Tinubu urged fellow leaders to call for a new deal where all are equal partners and share benefits equitably.
In his speech, Dele Alake, minister of solid minerals development, criticised what he described as historical exploitation of Africa’s mineral resources, which has primarily benefited foreign nations while leaving local economies impoverished.
Alake said there is a need for a paradigm shift in which the entire mineral value chain — from extraction to processing — is localised.