Terra Industries has landed a $1 million contract from Anka Metals to provide security for the Jema’a Resource Project, a multi-metallic mining site in Kaduna State’s Gidan Waya area. The Nigerian defence-tech company says the deal marks the first contract under a broader security partnership that will eventually cover Anka Metals‘ entire mining portfolio.
What The Contract Covers
Under the agreement, Terra will deploy autonomous surveillance and site protection systems at the project, running on ArtemisOS, the company’s proprietary command-and-control software platform. The goal is to give the mining site continuous monitoring and rapid-response capability in a part of the country where security coverage for remote industrial assets has historically been thin.
Terra has pointed to a broader pattern behind the deal: mining, oil and power operators across Africa often run critical infrastructure in locations with limited security presence and long emergency response times, a gap the company has built its commercial security business around closing.
Why Jema’a Resource Project Matters
The site sits on one of Nigeria’s most closely watched mineral assets. Exploration work led by Anka Metals and Kian Smith uncovered a large multi-metallic deposit in the Gidan Waya pegmatite belt, with inferred resources including gold, nickel, and enriched ore bodies of tantalum, niobium, tin and tungsten, alongside lithium and copper. The discovery prompted the Kaduna Mining Development Company (KMDC) to set up the Jema’a Resource Project as a special purpose vehicle to develop the asset.
The project has since attracted serious institutional backing. In July, KMDC and the Jema’a Resource Project signed a $500 million financing and development framework with the Africa Finance Corporation, covering mining assets across Kaduna State. According to Anka Metals chief executive Nere Emiko, Kaduna became the first state in Nigeria to secure such a partnership through a state-owned mining company.
A Bigger Security Push
The Anka Metals contract extends Terra’s footprint into Kaduna’s fast-growing solid minerals sector, coming as the state positions itself as a hub for AFC-backed mineral investment. It also follows a separate deal in which Terra closed $2 million in contracts to secure lithium mining operations elsewhere in Nigeria, suggesting a pattern of defence-tech firms moving into the security gaps left as Nigeria’s mining sector scales up.
The Bigger Picture
As more capital flows into Nigeria’s solid minerals sector, security is becoming as central to project viability as financing and geology. With Kaduna State pushing hard to position itself as a leading investment destination, backed by confirmed deposits of platinum group metals, gold, lithium, nickel, copper, cobalt, silver and rare earths, contracts like this one signal that investors are treating physical security as a prerequisite for scaling projects from exploration to commercial production, not an afterthought.
