Despite possessing vast deposits of critical solid minerals valued at an estimated $700–$750 billion, positioning Nigeria as a potential global mining powerhouse, over 60 per cent of its population still lives below the poverty line. Hasetins Commodities aims to reverse this trend through its mining model that lifts entire communities out of poverty, DAVID MAXWELL writes.
By any measure, Nigeria’s solid minerals sector has long promised more than it has delivered. Rich deposits lie beneath rural communities, yet poverty, informality and insecurity have often defined life above ground. For Prince Jidayi, Managing Director of Hasetins Commodities Limited, that paradox is precisely what his company set out to confront by rethinking not just how minerals are extracted, but how value is shared.
Speaking recently with select journalists in Abuja, Jidayi offered a rare glimpse into an integrated mining operation that stretches from exploration to export, and from high-end technology to village-level livelihoods. With major sites operating across Nasarawa State and a growing focus on critical and rare-earth metals, Hasetins is positioning itself at the intersection of global demand and local development.
“At Hasetins, we run the whole chain,” Jidayi explained. “From exploration to mining, processing and off-take—that has always been our model.” It is a model built patiently. Over the last 10 to 15 years, the company has invested millions of dollars exploring multiple locations across Nigeria, acquiring mining sites and developing processing capacity for rare earths, critical metals and other commodities.
That long gestation period, he said, sharpened the firm’s strategic focus. “We realised that the world is moving in a particular direction technologically. So we decided to focus on metals that are critical to today’s applications.” In an era defined by renewable energy, electric vehicles and advanced electronics, those metals sit at the heart of global supply chains—and geopolitical competition.
Yet Hasetins’ story is not only about global markets. It is also about the thousands of Nigerians whose lives are being reshaped by mining activities carried out far from corporate boardrooms.
A defining feature of Hasetins’ approach is its structured engagement with artisanal miners. Across Nigeria, artisanal and small-scale mining has often been informal, hazardous and exploitative. Hasetins, by contrast, treats it as a complementary pillar within a larger industrial framework.
In a typical artisanal mining site, Jidayi noted, between 500 and 2,000 people may be working at any given time. Multiply that across several locations, add buying centres and associated services, and the numbers quickly climb into the tens of thousands. “Once people see that others in a community are making money, they migrate there, settle and look for work,” he said.
For Hasetins, artisanal production provides what Jidayi calls “supplementary feedstock”. While the company relies primarily on machine-led operations for guaranteed output, it also absorbs everything produced by local miners. “You cannot fully bank on artisanal production because it’s unpredictable—people may go to their farms or leave for other reasons,” he explained. “But the more feedstock we get, the better it is for us.”
Crucially, this relationship is carefully structured. Within its mining concessions, Hasetins designates areas specifically for community mining. The company provides equipment, safety gear and training, enabling villagers to work more safely and productively. At the heart of this system are Satellite Separation Centres, SSCs, set up within the communities themselves.
At these centres, locally mined ore is weighed, assessed for quality and processed to remove waste material. Payment is made transparently, based on output. “You will see a local man in the village making almost the national minimum wage in less than two days’ work,” Jidayi said.
The impact extends beyond the miners themselves. As income circulates, secondary businesses—food vendors, fuel sellers, transporters—spring up around mining hubs. “There is a ripple effect, a butterfly effect,” he said. “The entire community begins to make money.”
Once purchased at the SSCs, the material moves to regional separation plants and then to Hasetins’ main processing facilities, where it is beneficiated and prepared for export. Foreign exchange earned abroad, Jidayi emphasised, ultimately flows back to the grassroots. “We export, earn foreign currency, and still come back to pay the people all the way to the village. In a real sense, villagers are earning foreign dollars.”
This closed-loop system—local extraction, central processing, global sales and local reinvestment—has also fostered strong community relations. By avoiding the image of an extractive company that arrives, takes and leaves, Hasetins has built a model anchored in participation and shared benefit.
It is a model the company is now keen to replicate. Applications for additional mining licences are pending in other locations, with plans to roll out the same community-integrated framework once approvals are secured.
Asked about employment prospects linked to the Uke plant alone, Jidayi was unequivocal. Initial estimates, he suggested, barely scratch the surface. “The real numbers will run into the tens of thousands in the next few months,” he said.
Direct jobs within Hasetins’ operations are only part of the picture. Indirect employment—from artisanal mining to logistics, trading and services—multiplies the impact. As operations expand, communities transform into economic hubs, drawing in labour and enterprise from surrounding areas.
Still, Jidayi was careful to stress the importance of balance. Artisanal mining, while valuable, remains supplementary. “Our major output comes from our machines,” he said. “But we can estimate what a certain number of people can produce and factor that in as additional feedstock. We take everything they bring.”
Behind this expansive operation lies a substantial financial commitment. Hasetins’ investment, estimated at about $400 million, has been largely privately financed. According to Jidayi, the Nigerian government’s role has centred on policy support, security and an enabling environment, rather than direct funding.
The capital itself was raised through a syndication of high-net-worth individuals, HNIs, many of whom have longstanding relationships with the company. “Nobody wants to give you $400 million in one bulk,” Jidayi said. “So we broke it down and brought in individuals to syndicate the financing.”
Non-disclosure agreements prevent public identification of the investors, but Jidayi insists the process is fully traceable. Equipment purchases, he noted, leave clear financial trails. “If the government wants to know, it is very easy to trace who paid for what.”
In a sector often associated with conflict, environmental damage and lost opportunities, Hasetins is attempting to write a different narrative – one where mining becomes a platform for industrial growth and rural transformation. Whether that model can be sustained at scale remains to be seen, but as Nigeria seeks to diversify its economy and harness its mineral wealth more responsibly, the experiment unfolding in Nasarawa offers a glimpse of what might be possible when global ambition meets local inclusion.
