…Three days to Africa’s biggest raw materials summit in Abuja, RMRDC DG’s reform record, 30% value-addition push and institutional turnaround position him as linchpin for Nigeria’s industrial reset
By Danjuma Amodu
With three days to the 2nd Africa Raw Materials Summit (ARMS 2026), the conversation is shifting from what will be discussed to who will drive implementation.
At the centre of that conversation is Prof. Nnanyelugo M. Ike-Muonso, Director-General and Chief Executive Officer of the Raw Materials Research and Development Council (RMRDC).
On October 19 and 20, over 1,800 delegates from 54 African countries and international industrial partners will converge at the Abuja Continental Hotel for the summit themed “From African Feedstock to African Factories.” The gathering will feature high-level policy dialogues, interactive sessions, exhibitions of locally developed processing machinery and industrial materials, visits to manufacturing and raw-material processing facilities, and the Africa Raw Materials Industry Awards to recognise industrialists, researchers and private-sector organisations driving transformation.
Beyond the logistics and exhibitions, stakeholders are asking a critical question: Does Nigeria finally have the right leadership to move from summit declarations to factory floors? Evidence from the last two years and four months at RMRDC suggests it does.
When Prof. Ike-Muonso assumed leadership, RMRDC was largely seen as a research documentation agency. Under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda, he received a clear mandate to shift from catalogue to impact, and he delivered a reset that few government agencies have matched in recent years.
He championed the landmark Raw Materials 30% Mandatory Value Addition Bill, which now awaits presidential assent after passage by the National Assembly. The bill, the first of its kind in Nigeria, makes it illegal to export raw materials without at least 30 percent local processing. It is projected to create over 1.2 million skilled jobs within five years, conserve billions in foreign exchange and rebuild manufacturing’s contribution to Gross Domestic Product.
He deployed the Nigeria Integrated Information Statistical System for Raw Materials and Products (NISRAMP), a live digital intelligence repository that provides global investors with real-time data on feedstock location, specification, production output and industrial absorption capacity, effectively closing the information gap that has long constrained investment in local processing.
He led RMRDC to become fully paperless and secured dual institutional validations: certification as a Data Controller and Processor of Major Importance by the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) and the global ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management System certification. He also secured ISO certification for the Council’s processes and established the RMRDC Training School to equip micro, small and medium enterprises, miners and processors with hands-on technical capacity.
Under his leadership, the Council launched the RMRDC 360 multimedia platform to expand public engagement, restructured its flagship Journal of Raw Materials Research (JORMAR) into an open-access internationally indexed journal to commercialise local research, and strengthened partnerships aimed at technology transfer and industrial commercialisation.
What sets Ike-Muonso apart is his ability to link research to capital and policy to execution. In the last one year, RMRDC signed an operational funding agreement with the Bank of Industry (BOI) to fund commercial-scale post-harvest processing for onions, grains and industrial minerals, and sealed a historic South-South technology transfer partnership with the National Innovation Centre par Excellence (NICE) in Shanghai, facilitated by the World Association of Industrial and Technological Research Organizations (WAITRO).
That turnaround earned the Council the prestigious Aljazirah Double Honour Award as Outstanding Government Agency of the Year for 2024 and 2025, while positioning Nigeria, with over $582.4 billion in documented non-renewable natural resources, as a credible voice for Africa’s industrial reset.
It is this linkage that ARMS 2026 seeks to scale across five major pillars identified by the Council: logistics infrastructure, value-addition policy, circular economy and sustainability, regional value-chain integration under the African Continental Free Trade Area, and technology commercialisation and capital linkage.
As the summit draws near, the call is not just for attendance, but for alignment. According to the Council, the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment must accelerate the legislative final mile for the 30% bill, development finance institutions must move from pledges to off-taker agreements in the deal rooms, logistics authorities and standards organizations must commit to fixing the missing middle that traps raw materials between farm, mine and factory, and the private sector must come to Abuja not as spectators, but as co-authors of Africa’s industrial renaissance.
Chairman of the Summit Planning Committee, Mrs. Racheal Okotso, said the platform is aimed at changing the way Africa develops and utilises its raw materials, noting that over 1,000 institutions have been reached, over 3,500 letters sent out and over 25 countries have already confirmed interest as registration continues. The second edition builds on the inaugural ARMS held in May 2025, which produced the 10-Year Raw Materials Transformation Roadmap (2025-2034).
Prof. Ike-Muonso has provided the architecture. He has built the data system, the quality framework, the funding pathway and the continental platform. Now he needs stakeholder backing to turn vision into output. As he told the press at the unveiling of the summit: “The era of seeing Africa as a pit for mineral extraction is over. The summit marks an inflection point where policy, capital, technology and political will align to ensure that what is extracted from African soil is transformed on African soil.”
On October 19, Abuja has a chance to prove it.
Danjuma writes in from Abuja. He writes on governance, policy, environment, climate, development and the economy. He can be reached on 08035976766
