Despite Nigeria not having a robust extraction of gold deposits and production, the commodity fetched the federal government N10.3bn in the first quarter of 2022, a report by the National Bureau of Statistics has shown.
The report, titled ‘Trade in Goods Statistics,’ said the commodity classified as ‘Gold unwrought or in semi-mfr. forms, or in powder form’ was exported to Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates bringing in N10,057.83 and 329.39 respectively.
This is as Nigeria is struggling to modernize mining of the commodity, which is mostly extracted by artisan miners who use the crude form to extract them from the surface of the earth.
Even though the commodity has been found in states like, Zamfara, Kaduna, Kebbi, Niger, Kogi, Ogun, Osun Abuja, Bauchi, Cross River, Edo, Osun, Niger, Sokoto, Kebbi, Oyo, Ebonyi, Kwara, Nigeria still lacks the capacity to produce them into consumable products like jewelry.
The sector is also associated with illegal mining and smuggling with President Muhammadu Buhari saying Nigeria lost $3 billion to illegal smuggling of gold between 2012 and 2018, while it is estimated that 2 tons of gold per month is being mined by artisans presently in Nigeria.
