A new report from the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, (NEITI), has shown that granite, granite dust, limestone, laterite and lead/zinc ore as the top five minerals with the highest exploration in the country.
Limestone is the biggest contributor to royalties paid to the government with 37.6 percent, followed by granite aggregate, laterite, and granite dust and lead/zinc ore.
Ogun, Kogi and Cross River states received the highest funds from the sale of solid minerals in 2019, inclusive of 13 percent derivation.
In terms of accruals from 13 percent derivation, the top three states, including Ogun, got N251.2 million; Kogi received N179.3 million while Cross River got N59.4 million.
But aside from Ogun, Kogi and Cross River, Edo and Sokoto also joined in the overall minerals producing table with the three extracting close to 75% of the commodities produced in 2019.
In all, 74 private entities were engaged in mining in 2019 with the highest producing company being Dangote, BUA International, Lafarge, Reynolds Construction, Julius Berger, Setraco and Mothercat among others.
However, out of the 61 companies engaged in the export of mineral ores and concentrates in 2019, a total of 25 could not show evidence of paying royalty to the federation, amounting to a liability of N482 million.
