Poverty amid huge natural endowments – The story of Nigerian states

Against the backdrop of the inability of 18 state governments in Nigeria to pay workers’ salaries and their recent clamour for a bailout from the Federal Government, a look into the huge natural endowments in all the states reveals that in the actual sense of the word, there is no reason why state governments should not meet their financial needs on a consistent basis. Analysts say the reason for the poor state of affairs in the states in relation to paucity of funds could be blamed on sheer laziness on the part of governors who prefer to go cap-in-hand to Abuja to tapping into the huge potentials buried underneath the earth within their domain.

Amid the near bankruptcy status of many Nigerian states, with its resultant backlog of salaries owed workers, mineral resources worth billions of dollars are currently left untouched underneath the earth across the 36 states of the federation, including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

For decades, state governments in Nigeria have had to depend on the handout from the Federal Government to run their states. The ugly situation, which was entrenched by the commercial crude oil discovery, an onshore oilfield in Oloibiri, a community located in Ogbia Local Government Area of Bayelsa State, then under Rivers State, was made possible by the Nigerian federal structure where an Exclusive List exists which placed the exploration of natural resources at the monopoly of the Federal Government.

The states currently owing workers, according to the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), are: Abia, Akwa Ibom, Bauchi, Benue, Cross River, Ekiti, Imo, Jigawa, Kano, Katsina, Kogi, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, Oyo, Plateau, Rivers and Zamfara.

A BD SUNDAY investigation revealed that Nigeria has over 56 unutilised natural resources that could have made the country the envy of the international community following the fall of oil prices in the international market; with the north topping the list of states with untapped mineral resources in commercial quantities.

Plateau State is leading the pack with 22 different minerals, followed by Nasarawa, 21; Kaduna, 19; Sokoto, 12; Ondo, 12; Buachi, 11; Edo, 11; Oyo, 11; Benue, 10; Kogi, 9; Amambra, 9; Kwara, 8; Borno, 8; Delta, 8; Bayelsa, 8; Cross Rivers, 8; Imo, 8; Kano, 7; Akwa Ibom, 7; Abuja, 7; Ogun, 7; Abia, 6; Rivers, 6; Osun, 6; Ekiti, 5; Adamawa, 4; Ebonyi, 3; Enugu, 3; Katsina, 3; Lagos, 3; Niger, 3; Gombe, 2; Yobe, 2; Zamfara, 2; with Jagawa, Kebbi, and Taraba states with 1 apiece.

Also revealed is the global expediency of some of the minerals found in Nigeria’s soil which ranges from materials for manufacturing of parts of aircraft, sophisticated electronic device, phones, calculators, global positioning system units and other small electronic devices; appliances such as television sets and some minerals that are used in many parts of the world for both medical and spiritual healings.

Abia State has gold, lead/zinc, limestone, oil/gas and salt. At the moment, the state has not paid the salaries of workers at the State Teaching Hospital for 9 months. The state is also said to be owing workers of the Hospital Management Board 8 months’ salary; Abia State Universal Basic Education Board, 6 months; Abia State Polytechnic,6 months; local government workers, 4 months; and teachers, 3 months’ salary arrears.

The FCT has underneath its soil: cassiterite (tin ore), clay, dolomite, gold, lead/zinc, marble and tantalite

Adamawa has bentonite, gypsium, kaolin and magnesite.

The state has clay, lead/zinc, lignite, limestone, oil/gas, salt and uranium; but owes its workers at least three months’ salaries.

Anambra boasts of clay, glass-sand, gypsum, iron-ore, lead/zinc, lignite, limestone, phosphate and salt.

Bauchi has buried inside its soil: gold, cassiterite (tin ore), columbite, gypsum, wolfram, coal, limestone, lignite, iron-ore and clay.

The state is sitting on: glay, gypsum, lead/zinc, lignite, limestone, maganese, oil/gas and uranium.

Bunue has: barite, clay, coal, cemstone, gypsium, iron-ore, and lead/zinc, limestone, marble and salt. With all that, it is owing its workers 5 months of salaries and 4 months of pension benefits.

The insurgence-troubled state has: bentonite, clay, diatomite, gypsum, hydro-carbon, kaolin and limestone.

The state has: clay, glass-sand, gypsum, iron-ore, kaolin, and lignite, marble and oil/gas.

The state has: gold, lead/zinc and salt. The NLC report was silent on the status of Ebonyi State on the ground that “there was no information.”

The state has buried inside its soil: bitumen, clay dolomite, phosphate, glass-sand, gold, gypsium, iron-ore, lignite, limestone, marble and oil/gas.

The state has: feldspar, granite, kaolin, syenite and tatium. Ekiti is already in arrears of state employee salaries for three months.

The state known as ‘Coal City’ has: limestone, coal and lead/zinc. Enugu may have paid the salaries of civil servants till date, but parastatals are owed 12 months’ salaries and pension and gratuity payments haven’t been paid since 2010.

Gombe has gemstone and gypsum.

The state has: gypsum, lead/zinc, lignite, limestone, marcasite, oil/gas, phosphate and salt. Imo State owes its employees salary arrears of at least, 6 months.

The state has: barite, lead/zinc, lignite, limestone, manganese, oil/gas, salt and uranium. Cross River is said to owe its employees salary arrears of 6 months.

The state has one natural resource which is butyles. Jigawa owes judiciary workers a month in salary arrears.

Kaduna State has: amethyst, aqua marine, asbestos, clay, flosper, gemstone, gold, graphite, kaolin, hyanite, mica, rock crystal, ruby, sapphire, sihnite, superntinite, Tentalime, Topaz & tourmaline.

Kano State has: gassiterite, copper, gemstone, glass-sand, lead/zinc, pyrochinre and tantalite. The state is yet to pay newly employed teachers for 3 months.

The state has: kaolin, marble and salt.

The state has gold buried on its souls.

Kogi State, which currently owes 4 months in arrears of pension and salary payments, has: cole, dolomite, feldspar, gypsum, iron-ore, kaolin, marble, talc and tantalite.

The state has: cassiterite, columbite, feldspar, gold, iron-ore, marble, mica and tantalite.

Lagos State, Nigeria’s commercial city has bitumen, clay and glass-sand buried on its soil.

The state has buried on its soil: amethyst (topaz garnet), barytex, barite, cassirite, chalcopyrite, clay, columbite, coking coal, dolomite/marble, feldspar, galena, iron-ore, limestone, mica, salt, sapphire, talc, tantalite, tourmaline quartz and zireon.

The state has: gold, lead/zinc and talc.

Ogun State has: bitumen, clay, feldspar, gemstone, kaolin, limestone and phosphate.  At the moment, also owes a month of salary payment and 52 months of unremitted pension deductions to the Pension Fund Administration.

Ondo State, which owes a month salary and pension payments, has bitumen, clay, coal, dimension stones, feldspar, gemstone, glass-sand, granite, gypsium, kaolin, limestone and oil/gas buried on its soil.

The state has: columbite, gold, granite, talc, tantalite and tourmaline. At the moment, Osun, on average, owes 7 months in salary and pension payments.

 Oyo, which owes three months in salaries and between five and 11 months of pension payments, has aqua marine, cassiterite, clay, dolomite, gemstone, gold, kaolin, marble, silimonite, talc and tantalite buried on its soil.

 Pleteau

The state has: barite, bauxite, betonite, bismuth, cassiterite, clay, coal, emeral, fluoride, gemstone, granite, iron-ore, kaolin, lead/zinc, marble, molybdenite, phrochlore, salt, tantalite/columbite, tin and wolfram. Plateau State at the moment owes 7 months in salaries and pension entitlements.

Rivers State, which currently owes its workers one month salaries 4 months worth of pension payments, has clay, class-sand, cignite, marble and oil/gas buried on its soil.

Sokoto State ‘boasts’ of: clay, flakes, gold, granite, gypsium, kaolin, laterite, limestone, phosphate, potash, silica sand and salt.

Taraba State has lead/zinc.

The state has soda ash and tintomite. The NLC report was also silent on the status of Yobe State on the ground that “there was no information.”

Zamfara has coal, cotton and gold. While the state has paid workers’ salaries up to date, the salaries of workers recruited in 2014 have not been paid.

According to available data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and Joint Tax Board (JTB), between 2010 and 2013, Lagos, Rivers, Delta, Edo, and Akwa Ibom were states that recorded the highest internally generated revenue (IGR). Lagos dominated in 2010, raking inN185.9 billion, Rivers followed with N173.1 billion, while Delta realised N106.4 billion.

Speaking with BD SUNDAY on the way the country could benefit maximally from its rich natural resources, Yinka Odumakin, national publicity secretary, Afenifere, a pan Yoruba social-cultural group, who was a delegate at the 2014 National Conference, said it was on the basis of the untapped resources across the 36 states that his like minds canvassed for the creation of additional states at the Confab.

He said: “The governors are the moments are lazy; they are not ready to till the grand and bring what is in it out to make money. I like to go to Abuja to beg money in the name of allocation. I have over and again that this ‘Almajari’ type of federalism would not get us anywhere as a country.  Let everybody go back home; and when you get back home, there would no longer be sharing of money.   We have to reconstitute this country; Nigeria’s problem is primarily structural”.

Auwal Ibrahim Musa, acting general secretary, West African Civil Society Forum (WACSOF), & executive director, Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), told BD SUNDAY that while it is expedient for Nigerians to begin to agitate for the removal of the exploration of natural resources from the exclusive list, to the concurrent list in order to pave the way for states to participate in the mining of natural resources, noted that the constitutional amendment requirement of such process would take too much time that the country can afford at the moment.

According to him, what is urgent for the Buhari led FG to do is to take expatriates to states with huge mineral deposits and the equipments for them to work with and engage the states in the process.

“For now, we can just encourage the FG to diversify the economic and increase ways the country can generate revenue. This is what we have been saying. The states may not have the man power to explore resources for now. The states can also be encouraged to mine and pay taxes to the FG”, he said.

He said laziness and corruption was responsible for the untapped natural resources and that Nigeria is blessed beyond measure with the kind of natural resources current buried in soils across the country.

“They are only looking for oil. That is why they are not interested in developing other minerals. Even the oil money is only in the hands of very few people. Many Nigerians including the oil producing communities themselves are not benefitting. We are hoping that the current government would block all the leakages in our system”, he said.

Findings have shown that there was no budget earmarked for the Ajaokuta Steel Company under the Goodluck Jonathan’s presidency. Some experts who spoke with BD SUNDAY laments that the project, which has gulped over $5 billion and required just about $650 million to be completed, reached about 98percent technical completion before work was stopped on it in 1992.

“One thing that is dear to Nigerians is the Ajaokuta Steel Complex and until we revive that complex, we cannot talk about Vision 2020. This is because for you to play big globally, you must industrialise and for you to industrialize you must produce steel. The Ajaokuta complex must be revived”, the immediate past president said in Lokoja, the Kogi State capital while soliciting votes of Nigerians during the 2011 presidential elections campaign.

The Senator Ahmed Lawan-led Adhoc Committee which probed into the activities of Bureau for Public Enterprises (BPE) in 2011 had also accused Olusegun Obasanjo, another former president of singlehandedly approving the concession of the Ajaokuta Steel Complex to Global Infrastructure Limited against due process.

Mohammed Musa Sada, former minister of Mines and Steel Development under the Abeokuta farmer had confessed to the committee that the FG spends N3.6 billion annually on the wages of workers in spite of the state of the Ajaokuta company which no longer produces, and that Global Infrastructure ruined the Ajaokuta complex by stripping it of all valuable equipment and machineries, leading to the cancellation of the entire process by the Federal Government.

Of all the minerals mined from the earth, according to experts, none is more useful than gold. Its usefulness is derived from a diversity of special properties. Gold conducts electricity and can be drawn into wire, be hammered into thin sheets, alloys with many other metals, can be melted and cast into highly detailed shapes.  Gold has been used to make ornamental objects and jewelry for thousands of years.

The most important industrial use of gold is in the manufacture of electronics. Solid state electronic devices use very low voltages and currents which are easily interrupted by corrosion or tarnish at the contact points. Electronic components made with gold are highly reliable.

Zinc is used as protective coating on steel, as die casting, as an alloying metal with copper to make brass, and as chemical compounds in rubber and paints used as sheet zinc and for galvanizing iron, electroplating, metal spraying, automotive parts, electrical fuses, anodes, dry cell batteries, fungicides, nutrition (essential growth element), chemicals, roof gutters, engravers’ plates, cable wrappings, organ pipes, in pennies, as sacrificial anodes used to protect ship hulls from galvanic action, in catalysts, in fluxes, in phosphors, and in additives to lubricating oils and greases. Zinc is mined in about 40 countries with China the leading producer, followed by Australia, Peru, Canada, and the United States.

Limestone has numerous uses: as a building material, as aggregate for the base of roads, as white pigment or filler in products such astoothpaste or paints, and as a chemical feedstock.

Cassiterite is an economically important mineral, being the primary ore of the metal tin. It is also used as a collector’s mineral with the transparent forms being highly desired. Cassiterite is also used as a minor gemstone, and is faceted mostly for collectors.

Clay is used for making pottery, both utilitarian and decorative, and construction products, such as bricks, wall and floor tiles. Different types ofclay, when used with different minerals and firing conditions, are used to produce earthenware, stoneware, and porcelain.

Dolomite long has been used as a source of calcium and magnesium for animal feeds. Dolomite now is available in a number of dosage forms including tablets and chewable wafers, to be taken as dietary supplements.

Marble is used as an artful rock because of its beauty and waxy transparency. The stone is particularly popular among sculptors especially the white varieties. Marble has been widely used for kitchen countertops and worktops. Marble is tremendously popular for the use of kitchen and bathroom panels, like wall panels and shower panels. It is used for its chemical properties in pharmaceuticals and agriculture. It is used for its optical properties in cosmetics, paint and paper.

Tantalum is used in alloys for strength and higher melting points, in glass to increase the index of refraction, and in surgical steel, as it is non-reactive and non-irritating to body tissues.

Most people probably think of salt as simply a white granular food seasoning. In fact, only 6% of all salt manufactured goes into food. Salt is used in more than 14,000 different ways from the making of products as varied as plastic, paper, glass, polyester, rubber and fertilisers to household bleach, soaps, detergents and dyes.

One study found that bentonite clay, when combined with magnesium chloride, successfully reduced fluoride contained in fluoridated water.

Gypsum uses include: manufacture of wallboard, cement, plaster of Paris, soil conditioning, and a hardening retarder in Portland cement. Varieties of gypsum known as “satin spar” and “alabaster” are used for a variety of ornamental purposes.

Kaolin is widely used in the making of paper, rubber, paint, and many other products. Kaolin is named after the hill in China (Kao-ling) from which it was mined for centuries. Its uses are multiple and diverse. Kaolin is suitable as a coating, functional filler, extender, ceramic raw material and pigment. It also holds importance as a raw material in refractory applications, catalysts, and concrete and fiber glass.

NATHANIEL AKHIGBE