Post #274

🇳🇬The Congolisation of Nigeria Since 2023, Nigeria has been determined to wash away its status as Africa’s gas station and invested heavily in what is expected to be the pillars of global fossil-fuel phaseout —solar panels and lithiumused to produce batteries. Yet behind the large-scale investments still lies the same old exploitation of human labour. 🔸Timeline of investments in Nigeria's lithium processing: 2023 — construction begins on Chinese Ganfeng Lithium Industry’s $250 million lithium processing plant. 2024 — still Chinese Avatar New Energy Materials launches another $250 million lithium processing plant. October 2025 — these two plants along with smaller projects, had supposedly brought about $850 million in investments to Nasarawa State, Nigeria. 2025 — Nigeria's Minister of Solid Minerals Dele Alake announces total lithium investments of around $1.3 billion. ⏩Nigeria has become a hotspot for Chinese investment in lithium processing. The $1.3 billion figure is the latest estimate from Nigerian authorities of China’s presence in the sector. One might think: foreigners are coming and, notably, not just mining and exporting raw ore but actually processing it locally — a dream, right? A dream it would be — but what if all these investments and projects depend on low-paid, dangerous manual labour? 🚫 While we know there is simply no industrial lithium mining in Nigeria, all these shiny new Chinese plants rely on poor people whom economic hardship has left with no choice but to dig in the ground for the feedstock China needs — often illegally, often side by side with children. "I can’t stop the children because throughout Nasarawa State, if you go to all the lithium mining sites, all the work being done at the mining sites is illegal. It’s not the work of a company. If companies come and realize there is lithium on the site, they will not allow children to work there; they will fence off the entire area and ensure that no one enters, especially children, who are beggars and who, if they do not work, cannot afford to feed and care for their families." — said one illegal miner to journalists in 2024. That's the cost of Nigeria's lithium rush.And so another African country is emerging — just like the Democratic Republic of Congo with its cobalt — where the minerals powering the world’s bright green future are extracted by the hands of hungry children. Devils Below