Solid Mineral Resource Development in Sustaining Nigeria’s Economic and Environmental Realities of the 21 Century

Nigeria had relied solely on her oil wealth at the expense of all other naturally endowed agricultural and enormous mineral resources that abound every landscape of the country. The worldwide economic melt-down that was experienced by the third quarter of 2008 in the United States of America coupled with the slide in foreign earning from crude oil export revenue at the international market, leaves a lot to be desired once again on Nigerian monolithic economy. This study attempts to take a general over view of ceramic raw materials based on the researcher’s field exploration, exploitation, and studio experimentation on these materials that were accessed for the purpose of producing products that satisfy aesthetic, functional, and technical purposes which have direct or indirect impact on sustainability of the environment. These are in the area of generating wealth from exploitation of solid minerals like kaolin, ball clays, feldspar, quartz/silica sand, calcium carbonate, talc, and bentonite, converting ceramic waste products to wealth after processing it into crushed power. Thus the manufacturing of structural ceramic products such as clay roof tiles, sanitary wares, wall and floor tiles, electrical insulators, sewage pipes, and burnt bricks, are basic components that contribute significantly to housing provisions in the built environment. The mineral exploitations and industrial establishments that are solid minerals based, in no small way, contribute to the socio-economic transformation of the environments through job creation. This is made possible by taking from the environmental local resources and paying back, by adding value to them through better standard of living.