Kwara State in the western North Central Zone of the country is now in the line to succeed Niger Delta as the country’s foreign exchange income base following the discovery of large deposits of lithium.

The Oracle Today reports that lithium is critical mineral that forms the fulcrum of the prevailing advancements in energy transition and electric vehicle evolution. The material is central to production of the all important lithium-ion batteries used in powering off grid appliances and electric vehicles.

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The Nigerian Geological Survey Agency (NGSA) declared that high grade lithium discovered in the country is already turning heads in the international markets with investors making enquiries for commercial exploration, mining and trading.

The Director-General of NGSA, Mr Abdulrazaq Garba, told journalists in Abuja that the Nigerian grade of lithium is valuable for its suitability for production of glass, aluminum products and long lasting batteries used in mobile phones, laptops, digital cameras and electric vehicles.

He said the mineral was discovered in Kwara by the National Integrated Mineral Exploration Project (NIMEP) during exploration, adding that subsequent analysis showed that Nigerian lithium is of high grade with upper range of significant 13 percent lithium oxide.

The NIMEP provides reliable geo-sciences information to guide investment decision on the right mining in Nigeria.

Mr Garba said all data received from NIMEP were quite exciting and would boost the economy.

“The standard worldwide for even exploration and mining starts from 0.4% lithium oxide; but when we started exploration and mining, we saw 1% up to 13% lithium oxide content,” he said, adding that investors are already indicating interest in license to join domestic exploration for the mineral.

“We even held discussions with some private companies with mining licences in Nigeria, and they conducted tests on lithium and we also collaborated with Canada on that too,” he said.

He said that a track of mineralization of up to 10 km was discovered close to Abuja, adding that resource evaluation was conducted on the area and anomalous gold, lead, tungsten and silver were discovered.

“Gold mineralization found there has high content of tungsten which is used as an additive exploration of steel,  therefore, any company mining there will be mining gold associated with lead, silver and tungsten.

Garba said announcements would soon be made on local and foreign companies that declare interest in the data.