The second edition of the Africa Commodities Conference and Exhibition (ACCE) is set to hold in Abuja this month, with organisers promising a stronger focus on Nigeria’s mining value chain, particularly artisanal and small-scale miners (ASM), whose role remains critical yet under-capitalised.

Chief Executive Officer of Mica Equity Allocation Ltd and promoter of ACCE, Michael Akueche, said participants should expect “improvements in organisation and attention to specific tasks and stakeholders, for an example the Artisanal and Small Scale Miners and their cooperatives.”

The conference, which has grown into a key gathering for industry players, is expected to attract both local and international participation.

According to Akueche, “we should expect some foreign participation… especially [from those] who would love to make presentations with regard to their mining equipment and machineries to the operators and local miners,” while also drawing “geologists, mining engineers, mineral processing engineers, and HSE professionals.”

A major focus of this year’s event is bridging the persistent gap between policy and implementation in the solid minerals sector. Akueche revealed that months of engagement with government agencies exposed structural challenges limiting investment in ASM operations.

“What we found wasn’t palatable because the memberships of the existing cooperatives is so small that it wouldn’t encourage government to invest the humongous amount of money that these equipment cost,” he said.

He added that even modest processing plants come at steep costs: “The cost runs into hundreds of thousands of dollars and in some cases in millions of dollars.”

To address this, he emphasised the need to scale up cooperative membership and inclusion. “The need to expand the scope of artisanal and small scale miners cooperatives cannot be over emphasised… it will enable more youth, women, men and host communities to secure a veritable means of livelihood,” he said, noting that broader participation would also strengthen community-level intelligence for national security.

Akueche said ACCE was conceived to tackle precisely such systemic issues. “Africa Commodities Conference and Exhibition seeks… to bring together stakeholders in the solid minerals industry to tackle several challenges especially as it concerns mineral commodities,” he explained, citing partnerships with the Solid Minerals Development Fund (SMDF) and relevant departments of the Ministry of Solid Minerals Development.

Reflecting on the sector’s recent trajectory, he credited reforms and leadership at the federal level. “Who would believe that he could attract the building of four gigantic lithium processing plants in Nigeria in just three years… and have more than quadruple the annual income in the industry?” he said.

However, he stressed that unlocking the sector’s full potential will require deeper structural reforms. “Investing heavily in the Nigerian indigenous companies… this is what the Chinese have done,” he said, alongside urgent investment in geological data.

“This is what holds back investment by lots of foreign players, because they want to know the amount of ore you have in the ground before committing their investments,” he added, urging government-backed data generation to de-risk exploration.

Funding remains a central constraint. “The mining industry needs funding, plant/equipment and machineries–especially funding,” Akueche noted, calling for expanded financing frameworks similar to emerging initiatives in the sector.

With these challenges in view, ACCE 2026 is positioning itself not just as a conference, but as a platform for aligning capital, policy, and operational capacity across Nigeria’s extractive industry.