BUA Group Chairman, Abdul Samad Rabiu, Calls for Shift from Extraction to Value Addition at AFC Event during Mining Indaba 2026

BUA Group Founder and Executive Chairman Abdul Samad Rabiu has issued a powerful call for Africa to fundamentally reorient its economic model, urging the continent to move beyond raw material extraction and embrace large-scale industrial processing and value addition.

Addressing African leaders, policymakers, and financiers as Special Guest of Honour at an Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) forum during Mining Indaba 2026, Rabiu argued that Africa’s development paradox—immense resource wealth coexisting with widespread import dependency—can only be resolved through deliberate industrialisation.

From Import Dependency to Export Power

Drawing from BUA Group’s own transformation, Rabiu recounted the company’s pivotal decision sixteen years ago to cease cement importation and invest in domestic production in Nigeria, a country richly endowed with limestone yet spending billions on foreign exchange for imports.

“We were spending more time chasing foreign exchange than selling cement,” Rabiu told the gathering. “The real question was not whether the resources existed, but whether there was enough conviction to stop importing and start producing locally.”

That conviction has yielded remarkable results. BUA now mines and processes approximately 40,000 tonnes of limestone daily, producing around one million tonnes of cement monthly. The shift has transformed Nigeria from a cement importer into a net exporter, saving the country billions of dollars annually while generating sustainable returns.

The Role of Patient Capital

Rabiu emphasised that such industrial transformation requires long-term financing, crediting the AFC with providing over $400 million in support for BUA’s cement and industrial operations. He noted that a significant portion of these facilities has already been repaid, demonstrating that “well-structured African industrial projects are not only developmental but also commercially viable and recyclable.”

He commended AFC for its recent positive outlook from S&P Global, stating that strong development finance institutions are critical to shaping Africa’s growth trajectory.

A Continental Challenge

The BUA Chairman highlighted a structural imbalance across the continent: Africa supplies much of the world’s gold, cobalt, copper, iron ore, diamonds, and cocoa, yet captures only a fraction of the downstream value.

“Africa does not lack resources,” Rabiu asserted. “What it lacks is processing capacity, industrial scale, and disciplined execution.”

He extended his critique to agriculture, noting that despite holding most of the world’s arable land, Africa continues to import billions of dollars in food annually.

A Call for Coordinated Action

Rabiu called for systematic collaboration between governments, development finance institutions, and the private sector. He urged DFIs to scale long-term financing targeted at beneficiation and industrial value chains, while governments must adopt deliberate policies that incentivise local processing and invest in power, transport, and industrial infrastructure.

“Industrialisation does not happen by accident,” he stressed. “Countries that industrialised did so by design, not by chance. Africa must do the same.”

He concluded by emphasising that Africa’s path to shared prosperity lies in aligning private enterprise, patient capital, and supportive policy to move the continent “from extraction to transformation, and from potential to shared prosperity.”