The Federal Government in collaboration with the Edo State government on Thursday promised to tackle illegal mining and smuggling of minerals head-on with a view to boost the country’s vast natural resources and revenue.
The duo made the pledge when Sampson Ogah, minister of state for mines and steel development paid a courtesy call on Governor Godwin Obaseki at the government house in Benin City.
Ogah expressed dissatisfaction over the practices of Illegal mining across the country, saying that it has become a bane in the sector and must be checked so as to harness the potential therein.
The minister equally revealed that in line with the president’s mandate to diversify the economy from crude oil, the Federal Government is building six processing plants in six geopolitical zones across the Nigeria.
“The president gave us a mandate to develop key solid minerals which are coal, bitumen, limestone, iron ore, gold, zinc among others. We have started the process and through the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), we have been able to attract some funding and we are building six processing plants because what we discovered in the past, is that people take our minerals.
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“For the south south zone, we are building a plant in Cross River State. What we are doing is the first test and after the geopolitical zones, we will go to state looking at the core minerals we have in each state and then advice Federal Government to fund the building and we will run it with the private sector so that at the end of the day, we will have the benefits of the plants,” Ogah said.
“Illegal miners are everywhere, we need the help of the local government authorities and chiefs because it is not good for us to allow illegal mining to continue. Sometimes, these illegal miners are not Nigerians, they are other nationals taking advantage of our gullible brothers and sisters.
“Ordinarily, no other nationals should have artisanal mining license, it is only meant to help Nigerians. But, we found out that when they get these license, they bring other nationals to mine there and create more problems because those illegal miners will not pay loyalties which is due to the state or even have an organised mining sector,” he said.
Ogah, who opined that Edo State should be rated second in terms of revenue from the mining sector owing to availability of several resources in the state, solicited the collaboration of the state government, local government authorities to promote sustainable growth in the sector.
Governor Godwin Obaseki, on his part, said his administration is committed to partnering with the Federal Government to come up with policies to improve the mining sector.
“As a state, we are making certain commitments and we are not going to leave mining alone for the Federal Government; we are forcing ourselves to be partners so that we can jointly coordinate and regulate the sector.
“This loophole must be closed. We have to work closely to check illegal mining. Once we legalise the operations and everybody understands the enforcement from the state government to the local government, nobody will go to perform illegal mining without proper authorisation,” Obaseki said.
