Nigerian defence technology company Terra Industries has secured a $1 million contract to provide autonomous surveillance and security at the Jema’a Resource Project in Kaduna state, as Nigeria seeks to attract investment into its critical minerals sector.
The phase-one contract was awarded by Anka Metals and covers security at the project in Gidan Waya, where deposits of gold, lithium, copper and nickel have been identified, Terra said.
The Jema’a project is being developed through a special-purpose vehicle established by Kaduna Mining Development Company (KMDC) after a discovery by Kian Smith for the KMDC-Anka Metals joint venture.
In July, KMDC and the Africa Finance Corporation signed agreements worth $500 million to support mining development across Kaduna, including the Jema’a project as it moves towards commercial production.
Terra said its latest contract forms part of a rapid expansion of its commercial mining-security business. The company said it had recently secured $2 million in contracts to protect two lithium mining operations in Nigeria.
The contracts involve deploying 20 sentry towers and four Iroko drones across the two sites. Terra said the systems use its ArtemisOS autonomous command-and-control platform for surveillance, threat detection and response, with operators planning to expand deployments as additional sites come online.
Nigeria has been seeking to attract international investment into its mining industry as it looks to diversify its economy beyond oil and develop domestic supply chains for minerals considered important to the energy transition.
Nigeria and the United States are also moving towards a formal agreement on mining cooperation, with the two countries expected to sign a memorandum of understanding on the sidelines of the 2026 United Nations General Assembly in New York.
The planned agreement follows discussions between Nigeria’s Minister of Solid Minerals Development Dele Alake and U.S. Embassy Chargé d’Affaires Keith Heffern.
The talks have covered geological exploration, mining, mineral processing, refining, value addition and the development of secure supply chains for critical minerals.
Terra has also attracted significant U.S. investment. The company raised $52 million in a seed round that included U.S. venture capital firms 8VC, Lux Capital and Valor Equity Partners, among other investors.
It said the funding would support manufacturing, international expansion and deployments across multiple markets.
For mining companies and investors, security is becoming an increasingly important consideration as Nigeria attempts to move mineral projects from exploration into commercial production. The country’s mining sector has historically faced challenges including illegal mining, theft and insecurity in some resource-rich areas.
Mohd Hassan has extensive experience in news gathering, editing, and writing for the newswire industry, Contact – Info@impactnews-wire.com
Lakin Ogunbanwo (Nigeria)
Most Famous Photo: His portrait series exploring Nigerian masculinity and identity, often featuring subjects in
traditional hats or veiled faces.
Short Bio: A Nigerian photographer born in 1987, Lakin Ogunbanwo is known for his bold and striking portraits,
particularly those exploring Nigerian sartorial culture and masculinity. His work often uses strong colors, dramatic lighting, and a focus on gesture and form to create evocative and visually captivating images.
Silver Agent
The Man who could only Drink Milk
I know an old man who had lived a life full of adventure, but his health started to catch up with him. He\’d run the Boston Marathon, was an avid surfer, and climbed Everest, but he\’d started to have abdominal pains around his 85th birthday and went to see a doctor. Sadly, he ultimately was diagnosed with a rare degenerative liver disease that slowly made him allergic to everything he ate.
He kept copious notes, and as an avid gastronomist slowly grew to despair as everything he\’d spent his life enjoying became something he could no longer eat. Alcohol went first, then mushrooms, then bread, then root vegetables, then coffee, one at a time he had to remove them from his diet. The doctor was clear: if he kept eating something his liver rejected the autoimmune response would be quick and severe, and would lead to a painful death. Little by little, everything was taken away as an option, until the only thing that remained was milk.
In some ways, this actually made life easier, because the mental strain of remembering what he could and couldn\’t eat was gone, but then so was the joy in variety. But he took it in stride, and got his own cow and took classes from a farmer to learn everything he could about the only thing that could give him sustenance. And even within milk, he could still have yogurt, butter, cream, some cheeses, and other milk-derived products he hadn\’t fully rejected yet, so it wasn\’t all bad. But then one day a few months later he felt the pain again, and he knew cow\’s milk was no longer an option.
Lacking other options, he tried goat\’s milk, and he was delighted that it worked! The protein structure is just different enough that his body still tolerated it. That bought him another month. And that\’s when we came up with a wonderful plan to go on one last grand adventure around the world. If he could get one month of life out of the milk of every mammal, he\’d actually have a few more years to enjoy life to the fullest and see the world in all its beauty. Each month, we\’d pick a place with a new mammal, and he would immerse himself fully with the locals, learn all the ways to prepare the milk, and just enjoy the hand he had been dealt as much as he could.
We milked sheep in New Zealand. Camels in Egypt. Zebras in South Africa. Giant bats in Indonesia. Do you know how many Peruvian cuy you need to milk to get a single glass? I do. Even as his health slowly faded, he stayed cheerful, and I felt lucky to join him on the adventure of a lifetime. That brings us to today when he got to the very end of his spreadsheet, and declared that he was now allergic to every mammal. He\’d enjoyed his journey, but his time had come to an end, for there was nothing left to milk.
To which I said nonsense, I bet we can milk a few thousand karma out of this post.
Liquid Death
Denmark: You have two cows. They have more rights than you.