Passage of 30% value-addition bill expected this week — Akpabio
The Senate President , Senator Godswill Akpabio.
Passage of 30% value-addition bill expected this week — Akpabio
The President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, on Tuesday announced that the Senate will pass the 30% Minimum Value-Addition Bill within the week, marking a significant step toward industrialising Nigeria’s raw materials sector.
There has been controversy surrounding the bill, which is sponsored by the council, particularly from the Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise. The Centre claims the bill could create significant adverse and unintended consequences for Nigerian exporters and manufacturers if it is passed into law.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of the inaugural Africa Raw Materials Summit by the Raw Materials Research and Development Council in Abuja, Akpabio, represented by Senator Aminu Abbas (Adamawa Central), described the bill as “groundbreaking,” adding that it has the potential to ignite domestic enterprise, create jobs, and build resilient industrial value chains.
He also criticised the legacy of exporting raw materials while importing finished goods, calling for a paradigm shift where Africa moves from being a resource supplier to a value creator.
Akpabio said, “We extract, yet others manufacture. We export in raw form yet import with added value. This extractive model—fuelled by colonial legacies and sustained by global asymmetries—must now give way to a new paradigm rooted in local processing, regional integration, and sovereign economic vision.
“In the Nigerian Senate, we have resolved to be proactive in addressing this structural imbalance. It is in this spirit that I reaffirm our full legislative backing for the 30% Minimum Value-Addition Bill, currently under consideration. This groundbreaking bill mandates that no raw material of Nigerian origin shall be exported without undergoing a minimum of 30% local value addition, whether through processing, refining, packaging, or industrial transformation.
“The 30 percent value addition bill will be passed by Senate this week God willing. ”
He, however, dismissed claims that the bill was meant to suffocate businesses.
Akpabio said, “This legislation is not intended to stifle trade; rather, it is designed to ignite domestic enterprise, create jobs, attract capital, and build resilient value chains that benefit our people.
Akpabio pledged the Senate’s support for the African Continental Free Trade Area and called for greater investment from African pension funds, sovereign wealth institutions, and development banks in industrial infrastructure and green energy linked to raw materials.
The Minister of State for Industry, Senator John Enoh, has called for urgent collaboration between his ministry and the Raw Materials Research and Development Council to ensure the swift passage of a key bill currently before the National Assembly, describing it as crucial to the growth and transformation of Nigeria’s industrial sector.
He stressed that the country must reduce its dependence on the export of unprocessed resources.
“I believe, like everybody else does, that raw materials are the fuel that continues to contribute to any country’s industrial growth and development.
“This bill essentially more than helps industry to achieve its work, “he added.
The minister lamented that Nigeria’s trade statistics continue to reflect a greater volume of raw material exports compared to finished goods and argued that the trend must change if the country hopes to build a robust industrial economy.
He urged stakeholders to redirect investment efforts towards building African factories instead of merely exploiting African mines.
Enoh also appealed for greater support for small and medium-sized enterprises over large extractive companies, and for a deliberate focus on equipping young Africans not just with academic qualifications but with 21st-century skills relevant to today’s job market.
The Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology, Uche Nnaji, stated that Africa must stop exporting its future in raw form, urging a continental shift from extractive dependency to value-driven industrialisation.
The Minister added that the era of exporting raw materials and importing dependency must come to an end.
“Value addition is no longer aspirational. It is imperative. It is the bridge between poverty and prosperity, the path to youth empowerment, SME growth, and global competitiveness. Let this summit declare firmly and irreversibly that Africa will no longer expose its future in unprocessed form. That our lead will become batteries, our cocoa, fine chocolate, our cassava, industrial inputs, and our young people, the engineers, scientists, and wealth creators of tomorrow,” he added.
