The federal government through the ministry of Solid Minerals Development, has began effort to ensure maximum security around the various natural resources in the country.
This is as the Dele Alake, the minister of Solid Minerals Development hosted the service chiefs to a meeting in his office in Abuja on Thursday.
Alake, who is also the chairman of the inter-ministerial committee recently inaugurated by president Tinubu, said that efforts were ongoing to develop a workable strategy to ensure effective security for Nigeria’s natural resources including solid minerals, forests, and marine economy.
He said, “Now, the Committee was set up by the president to address issues surrounding the security of natural resources and to fashion out strategies to completely curb the menace that is making Nigeria bleed. After the meeting, the decision was to expand it to include the service chiefs and their representatives who form the critical security arms of the country.
“Following up on the first meeting that we had amongst the ministers. It was decided that we should expand the scope to incorporate the critical security agencies and that’s why the security agencies are here represented
“All the critical stakeholders, security stakeholders that are relevant to this issue of securing natural resources are present here and we have deliberated exhaustively, like I said, and it has been decided that the security agencies that constitute the experts in this particular venture should meet and give us a work plan of execution of that mandate. And what is the mandate, to secure our natural resources, mineral sites, the forest and the marine economy and everyone agrees here.
“Now we’ll meet in a fortnight and deliberate on the work plan submitted by the security agencies and that work plan simply includes the formation of whatever outfits that we propose the modalities, execution, funding, and all details associated with the security outfits that we propose,” he said.
Restating the position of the federal government on the tragic Ibadan explosion, Alake stressed that the report of the ongoing forensic investigations by security agencies is being awaited before necessary action is taken.
He said, “I want to use this opportunity to let you know that what happened in the Ibadan, even though we’re expecting like I said in the Ibadan, the final forensic analysis report from the various security agencies, intelligence agencies, and the technical experts, even some from the Mines Inspectorate Division of this ministry of solid minerals.
“So we have the solid intelligence agencies working on unraveling the situation. And don’t forget that shrapnel or fragments, documents, and a lot of items constituting evidence were obtained from the site.
“And some of these things have to be scientifically analysed before an authentic report will be given. I did say at the time that the government would not be able to make a categorical statement until we have seen or received the report, studied, and come up with informed decision.”
