Some prominent leaders from the North Central zone have mobilised support for transforming the zone into an industrial powerhouse, calling for an immediate end to the direct export of unprocessed raw materials.
They made the call at the Stakeholders’ Development Summit in Abuja on Monday, under the theme “The Great Leap Forward: A 20-Year Economic Infrastructure and Social Development Plan for the North Central Region.”
Leading the call, former Minister of Women Affairs Pauline Tallen pointed out that the geopolitical zone possesses all the critical inputs necessary to build a massive manufacturing and mineral-processing economy.
Tallen noted that the North Central zone, comprising Benue, Kogi, Kwara, Nasarawa, Niger, Plateau and the Federal Capital Territory, is strategic.
“It is the heart of Nigeria and the region’s vast natural wealth provides the foundational baseline for rapid industrial expansion,” she said.
She argued that the main barrier to turning the raw resources into manufactured goods has been political fragmentation, urging leaders to build a unified economic front.
“What we only lack is the cohesion, the unity, the patriotism, the love to work together,” she added.
Commending President Bola Tinubu for establishing the North Central Development Commission (NCDC), the former minister said the commission must be utilised specifically to drive factory setup and infrastructure deployment.
Tallen insisted that state governors and federal ministers must align their policies directly with the NCDC to create a seamless environment for heavy industry and processing plants.
“The management team cannot effectively perform without our total support and cooperation, particularly our governors, our ministers. There must be that synergy,” she said.
Warning against purely political talk shops, Tallen urged immediate industrial execution, pointing to the region’s high-value mineral deposits as untapped industrial fuel.
Pointing to value addition as the pathway, Tallen said: “We are sitting on gold, diamonds, and lithium. What we need to do is unite and implement.”
She further tasked the NCDC to ensure that the human capital for this industrial transformation includes marginalised groups, explicitly calling for women, youth and persons with disabilities to be integrated into new industrial programmes.
Delivering the keynote address, former Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Sen. Iyorwuese Hagher laid out a stark critique of the region’s current economic model, which relies on exporting raw items rather than manufacturing finished products.
Hagher noted that despite sitting at the geographic centre of trade corridors, the region functions merely as an extractor of raw wealth for other entities to refine.
“There comes a time when people must look at themselves and ask: Who are we? What have we given? What are we now prepared to build?” Hagher said.
Focusing directly on industrial output, Hagher warned that raw agricultural harvesting without local factory processing guarantees perpetual economic stagnation.
“We produce, others process; we harvest, others warehouse. A food basket can still be a poverty basket, and that must end now,” he said.
To execute this industrial pivot, Hagher demanded the immediate construction of agro-processing factories, cold-chain storage logistics and specialised industrial parks across Benue, Nasarawa, Niger, Kogi and Kwara states.
Addressing operational bottlenecks, Hagher emphasised that ongoing rural insecurity directly halts industrial supply chains, framing peace as a non-negotiable prerequisite for factory operations.
“A dead farmer cannot produce yam; an abandoned village pays no tax. Peace is infrastructure, and justice is development,” he argued.
He insisted that the NCDC must operate as a dynamic economic strategy manager dedicated to attracting industrial capital rather than serving as a standard government office.
“The NCDC must not become another office that spends money and produces audit reports. It must become the strategic brain of an integrated regional economy,” Hagher urged.
Hagher called on the region’s youth to power this industrial shift by founding processing enterprises and tech-driven distribution networks rather than engaging in political thuggery.
He urged regional leaders to turn nearby Abuja into the primary consumer market for all manufactured, refined and processed goods originating from the North Central industrial belt.
