Nations throughout history have majorly used two types of resources to enhance their development to wit; human and natural resources. The latter is the focus of this exposition. Natural resources exist independent of human interventions, however the process of obtaining and refining them to serve social and economic purposes is very much the work of mankind. For this purpose, nations with these resources have designed frameworks for the maximal optimization of same. Nigeria as one of the leading nations in terms of the volume of natural resources in its territory, has also passed laws and regulations for the operation of the industries involved in extracting and processing these minerals. This paper is a forensic look at the legal and regulatory framework of the mining industry in Nigeria, its prospects, some bottlenecks encountered in the effective exploration of the resources and lastly, some recommendations on the effective exploitation of the rich resources and how it could translate to a viable economy for Nigeria.