Dele Alake, minister of solid minerals development, says the federal government will leverage the National Gold Purchase Programme (NGPP) to strengthen Nigeria’s foreign reserves and stabilise the naira through a gold-for-naira strategy.
Speaking on Wednesday at the Nigeria Gold Day celebration held on the sidelines of the 10th Nigeria Mining Week in Abuja, themed ‘Nigeria Mining: From Progress to Global Relevance’, Alake said gold remains an internationally recognised currency for trade and value storage — an opportunity Nigeria intends to harness.
He explained that under the NGPP, the government will purchase gold from artisanal and small-scale miners using naira rather than dollars. The gold will then be sold to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), where it will be stored as a foreign currency asset.
“The philosophy of that programme, how salutary it is, is that, we use our local naira, not foreign exchange, to mop up gold, then sell it to the CBN,” he said.
“The CBN in turn, makes part of the payment in naira but the gold kept in its vault becomes a foreign currency asset. The process thereby increases the value of our foreign reserves and reduces the pressure on the local currency.”
Alake added that the solid mineral development fund (SMDF) has been allocated additional resources in the 2025 budget cycle to expand gold aggregation and ensure wider participation across mining cooperatives.
“We use our naira and get naira back from CBN for the gold itself becomes foreign reserves for the bank,” he said. “This is to say that there is no amount of economic calculation you can do that will be faster in terms of shoring up our foreign reserves than this particular gold programme.”
The NGPP operates as a centralised offtake scheme supported by decentralised production networks, a structure the minister says will also help curb gold smuggling and improve transparency in the solid minerals sector.
Fatima Shinkafi, executive director of the SMDF, noted that while global gold exploration funding has slowed, investment in Nigeria’s gold sector is trending upward. She urged investors and operators at the summit to take advantage of the country’s growing gold portfolio.
Earlier, Shuaibu Abubakar, minister of steel development, disclosed that the federal government has opened discussions with the Republic of China to take over the revitalisation of the Ajaokuta Steel Company Limited (ASCL) and the National Iron Ore Mining Company (NIOMCO), signaling a broader minerals and industrial development drive.
