- Solid minerals minister Alake opens our eyes to sores and opportunities
It was a different narrative but no less chilling. When the Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dele Alake, spoke to lawmakers recently about the requirements of his ministry and its challenges, it was not a routine revelation. He announced that the surge of illegal mining, and associated banditry in the country, emanated not just from foreigners, but from within our community as a nation.
Hear him: “These are not your artisan miners. They’re not the people who pick gold on the ground. These are heavy and powerful individuals in our country. They’re Nigerians, and not foreigners.”
He proceeded further: “Yes, you can see foreigners as symptoms, but they’re not the basics. Nigerians are the powers behind those foreigners that you see on the streets. We’re identifying them and employing various strategies, both kinetic and non-kinetic.
“The non-kinetic with the artisan miners, I gave them an ultimatum that they should form themselves into cooperatives because every Nigerian has a right to life and necessities and if the government cannot provide these necessities, we cannot push them into the bush.”
For long, Nigerians were fed with a line that the culprits behind illegal miners were solely foreign businessmen with local collaborators. From the lips of Alake, we now know that they are locals with foreign collaborators. So, the locals are not symptoms but basics as the minister framed it, or shall we say the underlying disease. The foreigners constitute the symptoms. It is the vermin in the system opening the ulcerous sores to the flies buzzing over our patrimony. He added that even the foreigners lack proper immigration documentation.
It is not just a matter of criminals, but big criminals. If it is about big criminals alone, then it is a big crime. Big crime does not just tease a little resource from our commonwealth but big and frightening chunks. It violates our vitality, depletes our resources and compromises our potential to fund a robust nation and a lifestyle for our people in education, nutrition, healthcare and basic infrastructure.
No amount of money has been estimated, and for how long, from the depredation, but it tugs the heart with trepidation to even imagine it. Since it is a big crime, it is a mighty affair for the state and nation. It is not an issue for the minister alone. It concerns the Federal Executive Council (FEC), the National Economic Council (NEC), the national security adviser, the Department of State Services (DSS), the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) and other security outfits in the country and, of course, the president and commander-in-chief. It is a raw material for policy makers and thinkers, journalists and researchers, the citizens and elected officers. It is an invasion from within.
Alake says the government is bringing together a list of the criminals. The government should not just compile the names but also expose and prosecute them. They are not just stealing our treasure for their own dubious luxury, but they are immiserating a nation and ruining a generation. It will ultimately be a disservice to the nation if these agents of plunder remain in opulent anonymity, and not brought to disgrace and separated from their false prosperity and celebrity.
The minister reiterated what he saw as the financial potential of that industry and put it at $700 billion, which we see as conservative. He himself asserted that if the legislature assents to his budget proposal, his ministry will rake in a bountiful harvest. “We can return trillions to the coffers of this country as revenue if we are given such a budget as proposed,” he said. He did not disclose if the trillions will be in naira or dollars.
He listed 44 major solid minerals in the country, although the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) had put the number at 30. The minister’s figure may be new and improved data, and that should only cheer our hearts if they do not just lie impotent under the bowels of our earth or get stolen by elite bandits. Exposing them is not the minister’s alone but the task of the government.
Indeed, all local governments in this country have one form of mineral or another, and that only underscores why, as a nation, we should never lack or borrow. It is not our poverty that makes us suffer but our wealth. Many think we only have gold or crude oil or limestone. We also have such unfamiliar ones as magnetite, mica, quartz, rutile and kaolin. Also lying cosy beneath us are precious metals like sapphire, topaz and aquamarine. Gemstones or not, we have to make the most of the 44 because they are all part of our commonwealth. The minister listed seven with the highest demand in the world, including lithium, gold, cobalt, barite, bitumen and coal.
Alake has said that investors are coming “in droves,” although not many of the names of such investors have yet been disclosed. This must arise from the series of exploratory and marketing trips he has undertaken since he became the helmsman of that ministry. It is good news, but we await the harvest.
Sounding both sanguine and evangelistic, Alake said, “We have not even explored a quarter of the potential of what we have. Therefore, the entire budget of N24 billion is a non-starter if we are to achieve the stated objectives of the sector. We need nothing less than N250 billion for exploration if we are to achieve the mandate of this sector. The sector should contribute not less than 50 percent to the nation’s GDP. That N24 billion is a non-starter.”
One critical thing to enhance investment, he noted, is the restructuring of the Nigerian Mining Corporation. He wants it to follow the track of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) but with a different equity portfolio. He is calling for less government equity of about a quarter while companies and citizens will gobble up the rest. “Nigeria will also have its equity,” he explained, “adding that this would mean that no government could destabilise the structure.
Mining cannot be fruitful without calm at the sites. For now, it is a free-for- all-affair with many youths crowding the sites to work for pittance for the peacocks exploiting our failure to secure the mines. The minister spoke about deploying technology. He mentioned the use of artificial intelligence so as to refine the deployment of forces by reducing them and making them efficient. In that sense, he also met with the Minister of Defence, Abubakar Badaru, and we commend the proposed introduction of specialised mining police.
We have witnessed hordes of bandits ravage the northwest, including schools. The kidnap of many innocents is normalising as a scourge. It has been a harrowing part of our lives for the past few years. It is a paradox that the nightmare intersects our source of wealth.
The task before the minister is the task of a nation. Solid minerals are a big treasure trove. Crude oil has blinded us to its gem. It is high time we saw it as a prosperity emergency.
