By Yemi Olakitan
The Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dr. Dele Alake issued a warning recently that the federal government would retaliate harshly against dishonest international businesspeople that support banditry to engage in unlawful mining.
According to a press release signed by the Head of Press and Public Relations, Alaba Balogun, Alake made this comment during a courtesy visit by a team of the Nigeria-China Chamber of Mines, led by its National President, Dr. Olugbenga Ajala, to his office at the Ministry’s headquarters in Abuja.
He reaffirmed the Ministry’s commitment to forming an interagency task force to stop the operations of illegal miners and those who assist them.
In the meantime, he recognised the value of investor security, which, in his view, is essential to realising the Ministry’s vision of repositioning and sanitising the minerals sector for maximum contribution to the country’s socio-economic development under the current administration’s “Renewed Hope” agenda.
Reiterating that the government had granted illegal miners a 30-day grace period, the Minister said that this was not intended to be a punitive action but rather a mechanism to formalise and make them legitimate to continue in their line of work.
He further stated that the goal is to organise and streamline small-scale artisanal mining operations to maximise revenue for the federal government.
“Let me utilize this platform to urge you to tell those sponsors to desist or face the full force of the law. The government will come down hard on these unscrupulous foreign operators funding banditry to conduct unlawful mining.”
The Minister also insisted that the 36 States and the Federal Capital Territory, or FCT, have an abundance of minerals, which he termed as a revival instrument for the country’s economy.
He emphasised that the Tinubu-led administration is tenacious and committed to ending Nigeria’s more than 60-year reliance on crude oil as its primary source of export and foreign exchange earnings as attention is transferred from the hydrocarbon to the solid minerals sector.
He claims that the Ministry has launched a number of purposeful policies and programmes that are aimed at reaching predetermined goals for economic success, as stated in the roadmap that was only recently made available to the public.
