AFC Mining Indaba: BUA Chairman, Abdul Samad Rabiu, Requires Shift from Extraction to Worth Addition
Founder and Government Chairman of BUA Group, Abdul Samad Rabiu CFR CON, has known as for a decisive shift in Africa’s growth technique, urging governments, financiers, and the personal sector to maneuver the continent from uncooked materials extraction to massive scale industrial processing and worth addition.
Rabiu made the remarks as Particular Visitor of Honour at an Africa Finance Company discussion board throughout Mining Indaba 2026, the place African leaders, policymakers, financiers, and business executives gathered to debate the way forward for mining, industrialisation, and actual sector growth on the continent.
Commending AFC for its function in mobilising long run capital for Africa’s industrial sectors, Rabiu famous that the establishment’s management and up to date S&P World ranking with a optimistic outlook underscored the significance of robust growth finance establishments in shaping Africa’s progress trajectory.
Drawing from BUA Group’s expertise, he recounted the corporate’s resolution over sixteen years in the past to transition from cement importation to native production in Nigeria, regardless of the capital depth and lengthy gestation intervals related to mining and heavy business.
“On the time, Nigeria was importing cement regardless of being richly endowed with limestone,” Rabiu mentioned. “We had been spending extra time chasing international change than promoting cement. The true query was not whether or not the assets existed, however whether or not there was sufficient conviction to cease importing and begin producing domestically.”
Right this moment, he famous, BUA mines and processes about forty thousand tonnes of limestone each day, producing roughly a million tonnes of cement each month. That shift has helped Nigeria transfer from being a cement importer to a web exporter, saving the nation billions of {dollars} in international change yearly.
Rabiu confused that such transformation wouldn’t have been potential with out affected person, long run financing from DFIs, significantly the Africa Finance Company, which has supported BUA’s cement and industrial operations with over 4 hundred million {dollars} in financing.
He added that a good portion of these services has already been repaid, demonstrating that properly structured African industrial tasks will not be solely developmental but additionally commercially viable and recyclable.
Turning to the broader continental image, Rabiu highlighted what he described as a structural paradox: Africa stays one of many world’s most useful resource wealthy areas, but exports the majority of its minerals and agricultural produce in uncooked or minimally processed type.
He cited examples throughout gold, cobalt, copper, iron ore, diamonds, and cocoa, noting that whereas Africa provides a lot of the world’s uncooked inputs, it captures solely a fraction of the worth created downstream.
“Africa doesn’t lack assets,” he mentioned. “What it lacks is processing capability, industrial scale, and disciplined execution.”
He argued that the identical problem extends past mining into agriculture, the place Africa holds a majority of the world’s arable land but continues to import billions of {dollars}’ price of meals yearly.
Rabiu known as for coordinated motion amongst governments, DFIs, and the personal sector, urging DFIs to scale long run financing focused at beneficiation and industrial worth chains, whereas governments undertake deliberate insurance policies that incentivise native processing and put money into energy, transport, and industrial infrastructure.
“Industrialisation doesn’t occur accidentally,” he mentioned. “International locations that industrialised did so by design, not by likelihood. Africa should do the identical.”
He concluded by stressing that Africa’s alternative lies in aligning personal enterprise, affected person capital, and supportive coverage to maneuver the continent from extraction to transformation, and from potential to shared prosperity.