The Federal Government has revoked no fewer than 1,263 mineral licenses across the country for failure to meet statutory obligations.
The licenses, which are to be deleted from the Electronic Mining Cadastral System (eMC+) portal of the Nigerian Mining Cadastral Office (MCO), comprise 584 exploration licenses, 65 mining leases, 144 quarry licenses, and 470 small-scale mining leases.
Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dele Alake, announced the revocation in a statement on Sunday, signed by his media aide, Segun Tomori.
Alake said the action followed the affected companies’ failure to pay their annual service fees, stressing that the move was in line with the government’s ongoing efforts to sanitise the mining sector and open opportunities for serious investors.
“The era of obtaining licences and keeping them in drawers for the highest bidder, while financially capable and industrious businessmen are complaining of access to good sites, is over,” the minister declared.
He added that the revocation does not cancel the outstanding debts of the defaulting firms, noting that the list of defaulters would be forwarded to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for recovery and possible prosecution.
This latest round of revocations brings the total number of mineral titles withdrawn under the current administration to 3,794—including 619 revoked for non-payment of service fees and 912 for dormancy last year.
Director-General of the MCO, Simon Nkom, said the initial list of defaulters stood at 1,957 when the notice of intention to revoke was published in the Federal Government Gazette on June 19, 2025. He explained that the process took longer due to reconciliation of payments by some licensees who claimed to have already remitted fees via Remita.
According to him, the clean-up exercise is part of the government’s broader reforms to remove speculative and inactive titles, promote transparency, and attract genuine investors to the solid minerals sector.
