By Grace Samuel
The Minister of Solid Minerals, Dele Alake, has announced that the federal government has trained over two thousand mines marshals to combat illegal mining activities in the country.
this was made known during a two-day roundtable summit on sustainable development in the mining industry in Nigeria,
The marshals are equally distributed with sixty of them in each state of the federation. The summit was organized by the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS) in partnership with Bruit Costaud to address the challenges affecting the mining sector in Nigeria.
The summit brought together various stakeholders to brainstorm on possible solutions to the issues faced in the mining sector.
For NIPSS, the roundtable aimed to open up initiatives that could help the mining and steel sector contribute significantly to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country.
The keynote speaker emphasized that the government must look into the proper implementation of the laws that guide the mining sector.
The former Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, said that the brainstorming session was aimed at bringing key stakeholders in the mining sector together to discuss the current mining landscape in Nigeria.
The Minister of Solid Minerals Development, who addressed the summit, aimed to ensure that Nigeria becomes a mining destination for the first time in its history by eliminating bottlenecks that have plagued the sector over time, such as security.
The Governor of Nasarawa state, in his speech, reiterated that Nigeria is blessed with huge mineral resources that can add value to the nation economically.
However, many stakeholders present at the summit agreed that mining is a herculean task and one that needs a stable policy environment as possible to avoid business interruptions.
Overall, the summit was a platform for stakeholders to discuss the challenges of the mining sector in Nigeria and proffer solutions to boost the sector’s contribution to the country’s GDP.
