Federal Government, through the Solid Mineral Development Fund (SMDF), has launched a grant programme – Early-Stage Mineral Exploration in Nigeria, tagged, ‘EMERGE’.

With the grant, the Federal Government said it had begun practical steps to ensure that the country’s mineral resources were no longer exported in raw form, as private investors would have access to necessary financial support from the government.

Unveiling the programme yesterday in Abuja, the Minister of Solid Mineral Development, Henry Dele Alake, said the grant, which would be implemented by SMDF, would provide funding for mineral exploration, processing technology and research.

This, he said, included a structured business support that would enhance private investment in the sector.

The minister said the programme represented the missing step towards the reforms the administration had put in place for the sector.

According to him, it speaks directly to two of its priorities: generating reliable data on the country’s priority minerals, which sound investment depends on, while driving value addition and processing that retain the value of minerals back home.

The grants will support exploration assets, the critical minerals stream, processing technologies that enable the minerals to be refined in the country, and the research and development stream, which supports geoscience and mineral processing research that underpins the entire gamut.

Speaking earlier, the Executive Secretary, SMDF, Fatima Shinkafi, said that EMERGE would strengthen the mining sector through exploration, research and local value addition.

Describing the programme as a key component of the Federal Government’s solid minerals reform agenda aimed at attracting investment, improving geological data, and supporting mineral processing, she said reliable data remained crucial to unlocking mining opportunities.