Solid minerals may not glitter like oil, but in Nigeria’s bid to diversify its revenue streams, they are rapidly becoming the country’s most fiercely contested resource. From lithium to gold and tantalite, Nigeria’s subsurface wealth is now the subject of competing interests—both formal and feral. At the heart of the struggle to safeguard this wealth is a rather unflappable figure: Prof. Abubakar Ahmed Audi, Commandant General of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC).

His job, on paper, is modest: enforce the law, protect national infrastructure, and aid in internal security. In practice, he has become the federal government’s lead bulwark against an industry riddled with corruption, violent cartels, and foreign profiteers. In 14 months, NSCDC’s specially constituted Mining Marshals, under his direction, uncovered 460 illegal mining sites and arrested 405 suspects, including several foreign nationals. 146 suspects have since been prosecuted, a rarity in a system where criminal trials often collapse before they begin.

These numbers are not merely fodder for bureaucratic scorecards. They signal a significant disruption of a shadow economy that has long thrived on weak regulation, state complicity, and institutional timidity. The Marshals have seized tonnes of unlicensed ore, confiscated trucks, earthmovers and motorcycles, and shut down entire mining settlements previously immune to government oversight. In mineral-rich Kogi, Niger, and Nasarawa states, previously lawless zones are now under visible control—without the bombast or bloodshed that too often accompanies Nigerian enforcement operations.

Prof. Audi has managed this not with spectacular headlines, but with a doctrinaire approach to security: airtight intelligence gathering, calculated operations, and deliberate insulation from political interference. In a system prone to the ebb and flow of patronage, he has resisted offers that would compromise the mission—choosing instead to institutionalize enforcement through stakeholder engagement, surveillance technology, and legal follow-through.

This stoicism has not gone unnoticed. Mr. Dele Alake, the Minister of Solid Minerals, often the public face of Nigeria’s mineral reform, has credited much of his ministry’s success to NSCDC’s “quiet efficiency.” The synergy is working. Licensing compliance is up, investor confidence is being slowly restored, and revenue losses from illegal extraction are being curbed. The minerals may still lie underground, but more of their value is staying above it.

It is tempting to see Prof. Audi as an exception in Nigeria’s often cynical security landscape. But the deeper lesson may be that institutions—when led with clarity and guarded from interference—can in fact perform as designed. The Civil Defence Corps is not traditionally seen as the nation’s elite force. Yet under Audi’s watch, it has become something rarer: a functioning one.

The work is far from over. Illegal mining remains a lucrative business, often backed by networks of political protection and local desperation. But thanks to the CG’s unyielding posture, the rules of engagement have changed. Mineral wealth in Nigeria no longer lies entirely in the hands of those bold enough to steal it.