Outrage As Gold Extracted From North Heads Southward

The Northern Elders Forum (NEF) has opposed the Federal Government’s decision to site Nigeria’s national gold refinery in Lagos.

It also blamed Northern politicians and elite figures for what it described as “deafening silence” while gold extracted from Northern soil is refined hundreds of kilometres away.

In a strongly worded press release, the forum accused Northern governors, lawmakers, ministers and traditional power brokers of failing their people by refusing to challenge a policy it says entrenches economic dispossession and deepens structural inequality within the federation.

According to NEF, the choice of Lagos as the location for the gold refinery – despite the fact that the bulk of Nigeria’s gold is mined in Northern states such as Zamfara, Kebbi, Niger, Kaduna and Katsina – is neither accidental nor a technical error, but a deliberate economic decision with predictable consequences.

“The silence of Northern elites in the face of this injustice is what makes the situation unforgivable,” the forum said, warning that history would not be kind to leaders who “trade regional dignity for access to political favour and proximity to power.”

Signed by its spokesperson, Professor Abubakar Jika Jiddere, the statement argued that by stripping refining and value addition from gold-producing communities, the Federal Government is exporting jobs, technology and industrial opportunity to Lagos while condemning the source regions to poverty, unemployment and insecurity.

Jiddere said the pattern mirrors what he described as a long-standing extractive model in which the North supplies raw minerals, agricultural produce and cheap labour, while processing, branding, financing and industrial infrastructure are consistently located elsewhere.

“This is not inefficiency; it is designed underdevelopment,” he said, adding that Northern farmers and miners watch their produce leave the region in raw form only to return as finished goods priced beyond their reach.

Beyond the Federal Government, NEF’s anger was pointedly directed at Northern political leaders who, it said, regularly preach unity while acquiescing to economic marginalisation.

“Where are the Northern governors who invoke national cohesion while accepting economic strangulation? Where are the senators, ministers and party chieftains who enjoy access to power but cannot defend the economic dignity of their people?” Jiddere queried.

The forum grounded its objections in the 1999 Constitution, citing Section 14(3) on federal character, Section 16 on social justice and equality of opportunity, and Section 162(2) on derivation. It argued that the derivation principle should not be reduced to revenue sharing alone but must include meaningful industrial and developmental benefits for resource-bearing regions.

“If derivation justifies benefits for oil-producing areas, it must also apply to gold and solid minerals,” NEF said, warning that selective application of constitutional principles amounts to hypocrisy disguised as policy.

The forum also warned that concentrating strategic economic assets in Lagos has fuelled spatial inequality, weakened trust in the federal system and reinforced perceptions of exclusion in the North. According to NEF, every refinery sited far from resource zones deepens youth despair, accelerates rural collapse and strengthens the conditions that breed banditry, kidnapping and mass poverty.

Drawing comparisons with countries such as Australia, Canada, South Africa, Ghana and Chile, NEF noted that international best practice places primary processing and refining facilities close to mining sites to reduce costs, curb smuggling, improve oversight and anchor regional industrialisation.

“Nigeria’s decision to refine gold far from its source is not merely unconventional; it is economically regressive,” the statement said.

The forum described the policy as inconsistent with Nigeria’s long-standing practice of siting oil refineries close to crude-producing regions and called for a decentralised, resource-proximate refining framework.

NEF demanded that at least one primary gold refinery be located within the Northern gold-producing corridor, with Lagos restricted, if necessary, to trading, certification or export functions.

Above all, the forum insisted that the North is not asking for special treatment.

“We are not asking for favour,” Jiddere said. “We are demanding constitutional fairness.”

As the controversy grows, NEF warned that continued silence from Northern leaders would be interpreted not as caution, but as complicity in what it called the sustained economic humiliation of the region.