The solid minerals sector is being held hostage and prevented from contributing meaningfully to the economy, an industrial group has raised the alarm.
President of the Progressive Miners’ Empowerments Association, Mr. Sunny Ekozin, raised the alarm at a press conference in Abuja.
He said: “One of the major challenges of the sector has been that a cabal has taken that industry hostage and has disallowed it to develop enough to make the appropriate contributions to the economy of the nation.
“This cabal has been responsible for deceiving successive governments in the past and has pocketed various funds provided by the federal government and development partners, including the World Bank.
“Rather than developing the sector, those involved have only enriched themselves at the detriment of the miners and the solid minerals sector.”
He alleged that many members of the cabal occupy various government offices with the mandate to develop the sector.
Rather than do this, he said members of the cabal “allocate to themselves as many as 100 to 200 mining licences, which they then hawk through cronies, while denying genuine miners access to the fields.”
The activities of the cabal, Ekozin said, have resulted in realisation of a mere N1.7 billion from mining royalties in the last 20 years.
He stated the current situation in the solid minerals “requires emergency actions on the part of President Buhari, if he is to realize the change he promised Nigerians in his campaign.”
With regards to the moribund Ajaokuta Steel Complex in Kogi State, Ekosin said “those telling Nigerians that it was no longer viable were insincere as Ajaokuta is still very viable.”
He lamented that after the federal government had invested about $7.2 billion in the complex, it was disheartening the complex was still not operation despite the massive raw materials available as well as the large market for steel in the West Africam sub-region.