Ghana Said No.
Nigeria Said Yes.
Now Washington Wants Our Minerals Too.
Nigerians Deserve to See Every Page.
An Oblong Media Global Intelligence Investigation
There comes a point when foreign policy stops being merely the business of diplomats and becomes the business of every citizen.
Nigeria has reached that point.
Within nine months, the Federal Government has entered into two consequential frameworks with the United States covering two of the most strategically sensitive assets any country possesses:
the health and biological data of its people, and the mineral resources beneath its soil.
On 19 December 2025, Nigeria signed a five year health Memorandum of Understanding with the United States.
Then, on 23/24 September 2026, Nigeria signed another framework with Washington, this time covering geological exploration, mineral development and processing, infrastructure, technical capacity and investment in a mineral sector the Nigerian government itself values at approximately $700 billion.
There is nothing inherently wrong with cooperating with the United States.
There is nothing inherently wrong with attracting American investment.
And Nigeria desperately needs investment in healthcare, mining, manufacturing and infrastructure.
The problem is transparency.
What precisely has Nigeria agreed to?
What has been promised?
What information will America receive?
What rights will American entities acquire?
What obligations has Nigeria assumed?
What safeguards protect Nigerians?
And why are Nigerians learning some of the most sensitive details of these arrangements from foreign sources rather than from their own government?
Those questions have become considerably more urgent because Ghana has now said no.
GHANA READ THE DOCUMENT, AND STOPPED
President John Dramani Mahama has publicly explained why Ghana rejected the health compact offered by the United States.
According to Mahama, Ghana’s Ministry of Health did something elementary but enormously important:
It studied the agreement.
The ministry prepared a Cabinet Information Paper and sent the proposal to Cabinet.
Mahama says Cabinet then identified provisions it considered unacceptable.
Among his stated objections were demands concerning Ghana’s pathogen profile and medical records, counterpart financing, and provisions affecting Ghana’s regulatory authority over medical products. Ghana’s state broadcaster reports that Cabinet rejected the proposal.
Mahama said the proposal required Ghana to provide its pathogen profile and medical records.
He also said Ghana was expected to commit its own money and raised objections concerning the ability of Ghana’s Food and Drugs Authority to inspect medical products supplied under the arrangement.
Ghana therefore exercised what sovereign governments are supposed to exercise:
scrutiny before signature.
That immediately raises an uncomfortable question for Nigeria.
What did Ghana see that Nigeria was prepared to accept?
We must be precise here.
There is presently no evidence before Oblong Media establishing that Ghana was presented with the identical country specific document Nigeria signed.
We should therefore not make that claim.
But the agreements emerged from the same broader American bilateral health strategy, and independent examinations of these agreements have identified common concerns surrounding pathogen specimens, health information and data sharing arrangements. Human Rights Watch specifically identifies Nigeria among countries whose agreements reference specimen sharing arrangements.
And this is where Nigeria’s own document becomes extraordinary.
WE HAVE NOW LOOKED AT NIGERIA’S AGREEMENT
Nigeria’s public announcement in December 2025 was reassuring.
The Federal Ministry of Health said the MoU would strengthen disease surveillance, laboratory systems, biosafety, frontline healthcare, data systems and access to essential commodities.
It announced that America would provide nearly $2 billion, while Nigeria would mobilise nearly $3 billion in domestic health financing between 2026 and 2030.
Nothing inherently sinister there.
But the underlying document contains details that deserve far more public discussion.
The available copy is repeatedly stamped:
“NOT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE.”
And its provisions go considerably further than the cheerful government press release.
Nigeria plans to negotiate a specimen sharing arrangement covering specimens and related information, including genetic sequence data from pathogens with epidemic potential, subject to a data and specimen governance process. The intended arrangement would run for five years and could be renewed for another five.
Then something even more interesting appears at the back of the document.
Appendix 4: Specimen Sharing Agreement , “See attachment.”
Appendix 5: Data Sharing Agreement, “See attachment.”
Those attachments are not contained in the 41 page copy we examined.
So Nigerians are entitled to ask:
WHERE ARE THE ATTACHMENTS?
Publish them.
If there is nothing objectionable in them, there should be nothing to fear from Nigerians reading them.
THIS IS NOT SOME INTERNET CONSPIRACY THEORY
Human Rights Watch examined the emerging American bilateral health agreements and specifically raised concerns about information and specimen sharing.
It says the agreements involving Nigeria, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Uganda and Mozambique reference arrangements involving specimens, samples, sequencing data and associated information concerning novel or emerging infectious diseases.
It also says the complete specimen sharing terms were not publicly available.
Brookings has separately warned that the broader American framework raises legal, privacy and sovereignty questions concerning health information, electronic medical records and genomic and pathogen data.
ProPublica reported similar concerns across African countries and noted that Ghana, Zimbabwe and Zambia resisted proposed arrangements partly because of data sharing concerns.
This is therefore no longer a fringe question.
It is a legitimate sovereignty question.
AND NIGERIA IS PUTTING ALMOST $3 BILLION OF ITS OWN MONEY INTO THE ARRANGEMENT
This point must not disappear in the argument.
The available agreement shows planned American funding of approximately:
$1.954 billion.
Nigeria’s planned contribution:
$2.976 billion.
The Nigerian contribution increases substantially as American funding declines.
By 2030, planned annual American funding falls to approximately $236.9 million, while Nigeria’s rises to approximately $845.4 million.
That may ultimately be good health policy. Countries should finance their own healthcare rather than remain permanently dependent on foreign assistance.
But nearly $3 billion in projected Nigerian public expenditure is not pocket change.
The Federal Government itself describes Nigeria’s commitment as the largest co investment by any country under the American programme.
So where was the comprehensive national debate?
Where was the detailed explanation?
Where was the public presentation of the complete agreement and its attachments?
AND WHAT ABOUT OUR MEDICAL RECORDS?
Here again, precision matters.
We have not found evidence establishing that Nigeria simply agreed to hand Washington every Nigerian citizen’s identifiable medical file.
That claim would go beyond the evidence presently available.
But Nigeria’s agreement unquestionably contemplates a massive expansion and integration of electronic health records and national health data systems.
The document envisages digital medical record solutions expanding progressively until reaching 100% of facilities by 2030, alongside integrated laboratory, surveillance and national health data infrastructure.
That could be transformative for Nigerian healthcare.
It could also create an enormously valuable national health data architecture.
Which is precisely why Nigerians need to know the rules governing access to it.
Who can query the information?
What information can leave Nigeria?
Will records be anonymised?
Who controls re identification?
Can American contractors access them?
Can private pharmaceutical companies receive derivative information?
Can information be commercialised?
Who owns discoveries produced from Nigerian pathogen samples?
What benefit sharing arrangements exist?
What happens after American funding ends?
These questions are not anti American.
They are the questions any serious government should ask before transferring strategically valuable biological information.
THEN COMES THE $700 BILLION MINERAL AGREEMENT
Nine months later Nigeria has entered another strategic arrangement with Washington.
This time the subject is not healthcare.
It is the earth beneath our feet.
The Federal Government says Nigeria and the United States have signed a framework covering:
geological data and exploration;
mineral development and processing;
infrastructure;
technical capacity;
and investment throughout Nigeria’s mineral value chain.
Minister Dele Alake says Nigeria’s mineral resources are worth approximately $700 billion.
That figure alone should make every Nigerian sit upright.
This is not a roadside quarrying arrangement.
Critical minerals are becoming strategic assets in the global competition over batteries, semiconductors, defence technologies, renewable energy, artificial intelligence infrastructure and advanced manufacturing.
America wants secure mineral supply chains.
China wants them.
Europe wants them.
Everybody wants them.
Nigeria therefore holds bargaining power.
The question is whether we are using it.
WHERE IS THE COMPLETE MINERALS AGREEMENT?
Government announcements tell us what the agreement is supposed to accomplish.
They do not provide Nigerians with the complete contractual framework necessary to evaluate precisely what has been conceded or protected.
The government says implementation will now involve identifying viable projects, mobilising investment and establishing commercial partnerships.
Fine.
Then publish the document.
Let Nigerians see:
ownership provisions;
offtake arrangements;
geological data provisions;
tax incentives;
investment protections;
dispute resolution mechanisms;
local content requirements;
processing obligations;
environmental safeguards;
host community protections;
technology transfer provisions;
and any preferential rights given to American companies.
Until these things are disclosed, Nigerians are being asked to applaud a headline rather than evaluate an agreement.
AND WHO SPEAKS FOR NORTHERN NIGERIA?
This is where Comrade Ibrahim Muhammad Sani’s intervention deserves attention.
A Northern governor was not legally required to sign a federal minerals framework. Mining and mineral regulation are principally federal matters.
But that misses the political and economic issue.
Large mineral belts run through Northern Nigeria.
Yet the government’s published list of witnesses at the New York signing specifically included Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo Olu alongside federal mining officials.
No Northern governor appears on that published list.
That does not prove exclusion from the agreement.
But it raises a legitimate question:
Where are the governors and economic stakeholders representing the communities beneath whose land much of this mineral development may eventually occur?
Northern Nigeria cannot afford merely to provide the rocks.
Neither should the South.
Nigeria must avoid repeating the tragedy of petroleum: enormous natural wealth extracted while producing communities remain poor and much of the sophisticated value chain exists elsewhere.
The objective must be:
exploration – mining – processing – refining – manufacturing – Nigerian jobs – Nigerian technology – Nigerian exports.
Not:
dig – ship – import the finished product.
THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY MUST ANSWER A SIMPLE QUESTION
DID YOU SCRUTINISE THESE AGREEMENTS?
Our searches have not located evidence of a National Assembly hearing or detailed parliamentary scrutiny of either the December 2025 health MoU or the September 2026 minerals framework before signature.
That does not automatically mean the agreements are unconstitutional.
Section 12 of Nigeria’s Constitution provides that a treaty does not acquire force of law domestically unless enacted by the National Assembly, and the National Assembly itself has previously asserted its constitutional role concerning treaty ratification.
But there is another important complication.
The health MoU itself expressly states:
“This MOU is not an international agreement and does not give rise to legal rights and obligations under international or domestic law.”
That language may be intended to place the instrument outside the category of treaties requiring domestication.
But constitutional technicality is not the end of democratic accountability.
Something can be legally non binding and still be enormously consequential.
If an arrangement influences billions of dollars in public expenditure, pathogen sharing policy, electronic health infrastructure and national biological security arrangements, Parliament has every reason to scrutinise it even where formal treaty ratification is not legally required.
So let the Senate and House of Representatives tell Nigerians:
Did you receive the complete document?
Did relevant committees examine it?
Did you see Appendices 4 and 5?
Were privacy and data protection implications examined?
Has the minerals framework been submitted to you?
If not, why not?
THEN COMES THE MOST POLITICALLY SENSITIVE QUESTION
Nigeria’s relationship with Washington deteriorated dramatically in late 2025 over allegations concerning attacks on Christians.
President Trump’s administration applied enormous pressure.
President Tinubu’s government allegedly spent millions of dollars lobbying Trump.
The Boulous-Chagoury-Macron angle was activated.
Nigeria subsequently negotiated security cooperation with Washington.
Then came the health agreement.
And shortly afterwards the Nigerian government publicly announced that the diplomatic dispute had been “largely resolved.”
Information Minister Mohammed Idris specifically pointed to the $5.1 billion health partnership as evidence that relations had strengthened.
More significantly, the American government’s own description said the health MoU had been negotiated in connection with Nigerian reforms aimed at protecting Christian populations from violence, while stating that Washington expected continued Nigerian progress in that area.
That establishes a political and diplomatic context.
How do we know It does not establish a corrupt bargain?
HAS AMERICA’S SILENCE BEEN BOUGHT?
There is presently no evidence that Nigeria bought American silence.
Indeed, America has not simply gone silent: a U.S. Nigeria Joint Working Group was still meeting in August 2026 over Nigeria’s religious freedom designation, protection of Christian communities, prosecutions and military cooperation.
So Oblong Media will not manufacture evidence that does not exist.
But Nigerians are perfectly entitled to ask a narrower and more defensible question:
What exactly changed in the Nigeria United States relationship, what commitments produced that change, and are all those commitments known to Nigerians?
That question demands an answer.
IS THIS ABOUT TINUBU’S SECOND TERM?
Again, we must distinguish suspicion from evidence.
We have found no documentary evidence establishing that either the health agreement or the minerals framework or the withheld FBI files was exchanged for American support for President Bola Tinubu’s re election.
Nor should anybody state that as fact without evidence.
But 2027 is approaching.
That makes transparency even more, not less, important.
Nigeria’s strategic assets must never become instruments of anybody’s electoral survival.
Not Tinubu’s.
Not any future president’s.
Foreign governments have interests.
America has interests.
China has interests.
Britain has interests.
France has interests.
Nigeria’s government has one overriding responsibility:
Nigeria’s interest.
Therefore the government should remove suspicion by publishing the agreements.
IS NIGERIA BEING MORTGAGED FOR PERSONAL AMBITION?
We cannot presently answer yes as a matter of fact.
But neither should Nigerians accept “trust us” as an adequate answer.
When health data, pathogen specimens, billions of dollars in public commitments and hundreds of billions of dollars in estimated mineral resources enter bilateral negotiations, secrecy itself becomes a governance problem.
The burden should be on government to demonstrate that Nigeria obtained the best possible terms.
Publish the agreements.
Publish the annexes.
Publish the implementation arrangements.
Publish the safeguards.
Let experts examine them.
Let Parliament debate them.
Let civil society interrogate them.
Let Nigerian universities analyse them.
Let medical ethicists examine the health provisions.
Let cybersecurity specialists examine the data architecture.
Let geologists, mining engineers and economists examine the minerals agreement.
If the agreements are excellent, scrutiny will vindicate the government.
GHANA HAS NOW MADE NIGERIA’S QUESTIONS IMPOSSIBLE TO IGNORE
Ghana received an American proposal.
Its Health Ministry examined it.
Its Cabinet questioned it.
Its President says Ghana rejected provisions it considered unacceptable.
Nigeria chose another path and signed its own agreement.
That does not automatically make Ghana wise and Nigeria foolish; the country specific terms, financing requirements and health needs may differ.
But it creates an unavoidable benchmark for governance:
What scrutiny did Abuja conduct before signing?
Who represented Nigeria in the negotiations?
Which agencies cleared the data provisions?
Did the Nigeria Data Protection Commission examine them?
Did NAFDAC examine every regulatory implication?
Did the Attorney-General provide a legal opinion?
Did the National Security Adviser examine the biological security implications?
Did the National Assembly see the documents?
Were state governments consulted before Nigeria undertook almost $3 billion in projected domestic co financing involving federal and state expenditure?
And who approved the undisclosed attachments?
Those questions deserve answers.
NORTHERN GOVERNORS SHOULD ALSO WAKE UP
Comrade Ibrahim Muhammad Sani’s broader warning should not be reduced to regional grievance.
Northern governors should collectively demand clarity on implementation of the minerals framework.
Which minerals?
Which states?
Which companies?
Which processing plants?
Which railways?
Which roads?
Which power projects?
Which host communities?
Which Nigerian investors?
Which universities?
Which technology transfer programmes?
Which local content requirements?
Northern industrialists should not wait for foreign companies to arrive with their own drilling companies, laboratories, logistics firms, engineers, equipment suppliers and processors.
The 19 Northern states and the FCT should develop a Northern Critical Minerals Industrialisation Strategy 2026–2035.
But the same principle should apply everywhere.
If lithium comes from Nasarawa, processing capacity should benefit Nigeria.
If gold comes from Zamfara, Nigeria must capture value.
If minerals come from Plateau, Niger, Kaduna, Kebbi, Bauchi or elsewhere, host communities must participate.
And if commercially significant deposits are developed in Southern Nigeria, exactly the same principle must apply.
This should never become North versus South.
It should become:
Nigeria versus the old extract and export model.
OBLONG MEDIA’S DEMAND IS SIMPLE
We are not calling for Nigeria to break relations with America.
We are calling for Nigeria to negotiate with America from a position of sovereignty.
We are not calling for foreign investors to leave.
We are asking government to show Nigerians what those investors are being promised.
We are not alleging without evidence that President Tinubu traded national resources for American political support.
We are demanding sufficient transparency to make such suspicions unnecessary.
We are not claiming Ghana and Nigeria received identical documents.
We are saying Ghana’s objections have exposed questions Nigeria can no longer brush aside.
And we are not saying international cooperation is colonialism.
We are saying secrecy surrounding strategic national assets is unacceptable in a democracy.
PUBLISH THE DOCUMENTS
That is the solution.
President Tinubu’s government should publish the complete December 2025 Nigeria United States health MoU together with every operative appendix, databsharing arrangement and specimen sharing agreement.
Publish the complete September 2026 Nigeria United States minerals framework.
The National Assembly should hold public hearings.
The Health Committees should examine the health arrangement.
The Solid Minerals Committees should examine the minerals framework.
The Committees on Treaties, Agreements and Protocols should establish the precise legal status of both instruments.
And government should explain exactly what Nigerians have committed to, and what Nigeria receives in return.
Because sovereignty is not protected by press releases.
It is protected by institutions.
It is protected by scrutiny.
It is protected when governments remember that natural resources belong ultimately to the Nigerian federation and its people, not to an administration occupying office for four or eight years.
Ghana has demonstrated that an African government can receive an American proposal, scrutinise its provisions and say:
No. These terms are unacceptable to us.
Nigeria is equally entitled to say yes.
But before our government says yes on behalf of more than 200 million people, Nigerians are entitled to know precisely:
YES TO WHAT?
And now that another agreement potentially touches a mineral estate government values at $700 billion, that question becomes even more urgent.
America is negotiating for America’s strategic interests.
Nobody should condemn Washington for doing that.
The question is whether Abuja is negotiating just as fiercely for ours.
Duruebube Chimazuru Nnadi-Oforgu
For
OBLONG MEDIA GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE
The issue is not America versus Nigeria.
The issue is whether the Nigerian people know what is being negotiated in their name.
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