Jidayi Ijudigal: The Trader Now Mining Nigeria’s Future
Jidayi Ijudigal was once just a commodity trader. Today, the same man runs Hasetins Commodities and Viettals LLC, and he is fast becoming one of Nigeria’s most talked-about figures in critical minerals mining.
The biggest project of Ijudigal is a $400 million rare-earth and critical-metals plant in Uke, Nasarawa State. Set to become Africa’s largest facility of its kind once fully built, the plant already processes 6,000 metric tonnes yearly. Construction is underway to push that to 18,000 tonnes, a scale with a global weight as countries seek mineral sources outside China.
Beyond Nasarawa, Ijudigal holds about 22 mining licences across central and northern Nigeria. If analysts are to be believed, he is chasing tin, lithium, tantalum, coltan, tungsten, and rare earths, the materials behind EV batteries, smartphones, and defence technology.
He works alongside family members and Ellen Batzel, an American extractive-sector lawyer and investor who holds minority stakes in his ventures. That partnership has opened doors in Washington.
Ijudigal credits Nigeria’s reformed mining licensing system and the new “mining marshals” deployed under Minister Dele Alake for giving him confidence to commit this much capital locally.
Rather than exporting raw ore like Nigeria has done for decades, his model processes minerals at home before they leave the country, adding value before export, not after. The Nasarawa project alone is projected to create over 10,000 jobs and train local artisanal miners directly. Logistics will run on airfreight out of Abuja, not slow seaports.
The US Embassy and several American investment groups are already circling, hoping to secure off-take agreements once full production begins. For a man who started out trading, that is a long way to have come.
