The Digital Black Market: Nigeria’s illicit lithium trade uncovered

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He then panned the camera to show his warehouse among some locked shops in a marketplace where such materials are openly sold in Bani, a restive lithium trading community straddling Oyo and Kwara states. Mr Usman said some labourers who dug the pits and “bring out the materials” have moved elsewhere, “making our market slow down.”He would later give our reporter some samples of lithium varieties — lepidolite and kunzite — asking him to take them for a laboratory analysis “to determine the quality” before buying them in bulk.

PREMIUM TIMES’ findings showed that a lot of the minerals sold in Bani are illegally sourced from a forest between Igbeti and Soro villages around the Old Oyo National Park bordering Kwara State.Illegal mining and trading of lithium and other minerals is a multimillion-dollar business in Bani. “We don’t go to the site in Nasarawan Toto for security reasons,” Mr Dakata explained when asked if he could take our reporter to the mining site. “The labourers and the villagers transport the materials to us and we buy, sort them, and store them in the warehouse.”

“A truck conveying the materials from Bani to Shagamu would charge N1.5 million,” he said, adding that those who load the materials would charge N5,000 per tonne. The Taiwanese did not respond to questions when contacted via his WhatsApp line. He subsequently blocked our reporter from reaching him.Several traders in Bani told our reporter that there are revenues each truck leaving the lithium market would pay to the governments of Kwara and Oyo states. According to them, no receipts were issued for these revenues.

“If you are going to Ogbomoso through Igbeti Road, you’ll be given two passes. You will give one to forest guards and the other one to civil defense officers before getting to Ogbomoso,” he explained. According to Mr Jonathan, truck drivers may need to pay up to N300,000 in bribes to highway security officers, depending on the route they take.

Mr Abolore and his colleagues said they could only offer explanations if our reporter could physically meet them. They said PREMIUM TIMES will also write to the ministry before the meeting. That same day, the commissioner, during an inter-ministerial briefing in Ilorin, the capital of Kwara State, disclosed that the state government is investigating revenue diversion.

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