The Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS) has assured stakeholders in the solid minerals sector of transparent, fair and accountable administration of mining royalties and related fees following the transfer of collection responsibilities to the agency under the country’s new tax reforms.
The assurance was given during a mining stakeholders’ workshop, according to a statement issued on Sunday by the Executive Director of the Government and Large Taxpayers Directorate of the NRS, Amina Ado.
Ado said the reforms, which took effect on January 1, 2026, were introduced to address persistent challenges in the mining sector, including illegal mining, weak regulatory oversight, and widespread revenue leakage.
She explained that the tax laws signed by President Bola Tinubu in June 2025 formally transferred the collection of mineral royalties and other mining-related fees to the NRS.
“Since the first of January this year, by the tax laws signed in June 2025 by His Excellency President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the collection of mineral royalty and other fees in the solid minerals sector have come under the purview of NRS,” she said.
According to her, the Ministry of Solid Minerals Development would continue to serve as the industry regulator and provider of geological, pricing and production data, while the NRS would handle fiscal obligations for operators in the sector.
“One framework. One assessment. One door to knock on. That is Nigeria Revenue Service,” Ado stated.
She noted that the new framework was designed to eliminate multiple taxation and overlapping demands from different agencies, which she said had long discouraged compliance and pushed many operators outside formal regulatory structures.
“When many bodies may each lay a claim on the same operator, no single body carries the cost of over-reach and so the demands multiply, the burden becomes unknowable, and the sector retreats from view,” she added.
Ado stressed that the agency’s goal was not merely to impose taxes but to help build a viable and sustainable mining industry.
“We hear the concerns of the mining community. We will administer the tax laws in the spirit of a Service that wants the sector alive, formal, and thriving — not just taxed,” she said.
The NRS official identified lack of formal oversight as one of the major problems confronting Nigeria’s mining industry over the years, noting that illegal operators and foreign syndicates had exploited regulatory gaps in several mining communities.
“A government cannot assess what it cannot see. It cannot collect what it has not assessed. It cannot account for what it has not collected,” she said.
She warned that weak enforcement had enabled criminal networks and unlicensed foreign operators to flourish in states such as Zamfara, Niger and Kaduna.
“In Zamfara, in Niger, in parts of Kaduna and beyond, the vacuum where formal authority should have stood did not remain empty. It was filled by illegal operators, by foreign syndicates working our gold and lithium with no licence and no accountability,” she said.
Ado urged miners and operators to embrace formalisation, saying compliance would provide greater predictability, legal protection and improved security for licensed businesses.
“Visibility is not only an obligation we ask of you. It is, in the end, a protection we owe you,” she added.
She further assured operators that the implementation of the reforms would be guided by fairness, dialogue and equal treatment for all stakeholders regardless of size.
“We intend to meet it through clarity — you will know what is required of you, and when. Through fairness, like cases treated alike, whether the operator is a multinational or a registered cooperative of artisanal miners in Kebbi,” she said.
Ado also stressed the need for Nigeria’s mineral wealth to support long-term industrial growth and national development.
“Our task, in our time, is to make sure that the gold of Zamfara and Osun, the lithium of Nasarawa, the tin that still lies in the soil of Jos, the limestone and the barite and the iron ore are harnessed in such a way that this generation of mineral wealth builds something that stays,” she stated.
The Federal Government recently transferred the responsibility for collecting mineral royalties and related mining fees to the NRS under the sweeping tax reforms signed into law by President Tinubu in 2025.
Despite Nigeria’s vast deposits of gold, lithium, tin and other solid minerals, the mining sector has historically contributed only marginally to government revenue due to widespread illegal mining, poor compliance and weak institutional oversight.
