KADUNA — The Executive Secretary of the Solid Minerals Development Fund (SMDF), Hajiya Fatima Umaru-Shinkafi, has been conferred with the Honorary Fellowship of the Nigerian Society of Economic Geologists (NSEG).
She received the honour alongside Dr Innocent Ezuma and Sir Abu Karofi at the society's 5th Annual International Conference and Exhibition (AICE), held in Kaduna on Monday. Umaru-Shinkafi, who also oversees the National Gold Purchase Programme, was represented at the ceremony by the SMDF's Head of Special Projects, Martina Ananaba.
The President of the NSEG, Professor Samuel Olobaniyi, said the award recognised her role in developing Nigeria's solid minerals sector. According to the society, she restructured the fund's investment framework after taking office, set up its first dedicated capital pool for mining, and built a pipeline of projects with institutional partners.
The society highlighted the fund's partnership with the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), which produced the first project development facility in Nigeria's mining sector. The two institutions are jointly developing an alumina refinery that the NSEG described as the country's largest private mining investment to date, projected to add $1.2 billion a year to GDP and more than $25 billion in value over the life of the project.
It also cited the SMDF's Exploration and Research Development Grants Programme, designed to attract junior mining companies and reduce the risk of early-stage investment, as well as the SMDF-EMMERGE initiative.
Under the National Gold Purchase Scheme, developed by the SMDF with the Central Bank of Nigeria and now fully operational, gold from artisanal and small-scale miners is bought through formal channels. The society said the programme helps build the country's reserves in local currency and gives Nigerian gold a transparent route to international markets.
Ezuma, an industrialist and mining entrepreneur, is the Executive Chairman of Etazuma Mining Industries and is regarded as a pioneer of Nigeria's modern coal industry. Karofi, an economic geologist and administrator, has spent more than four decades in public service in the solid minerals sector. He is a Fellow of the Nigerian Mining and Geosciences Society (NMGS) and holds the national honour of Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON).
The society also admitted seven experts as regular fellows: Kolawole Matthew Ogunbiyi, Director-General of the National Steel Raw Materials Exploration Agency; Matthew Oyedokun, Vice President of the NMGS; geoscientist Tunde Muritala Arisekola; Silas Yakubu, Vice President of Kimberlite Africa Exploration Company of Nigeria; Dr Edwin Ekwo of the Nigerian Geological Survey Agency; Professor Hilary Ezeh; and Professor Rafiu Babatunde, a COMEG-certified chartered geologist.
Olobaniyi congratulated the award recipients and urged them to contribute more to the growth of the sector.