…accuses retired military generals of involvement in illegal mining
The Senate on Friday recommended the sum of N539billion as the capital expenditure allocation for the Ministry of Solid Minerals in the 2025 Appropriation Bill.
This is even as the Red Chamber alleged that some unnamed retired military generals were behind the numerous illegal mining activities taking place across the country.
The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Interior, Senator Adams Oshiomhole (APC – Edo North), made the allegation when the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Solid Minerals Development, Senator Ekong Sampson, submitted his 2025 budget report to the Senate Committee on Appropriation.
Oshiomhole said that the country’s efforts at diversifying its economy would remain a mirage if President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration refuses to address the growing incidence of illegal mining in the country.
On his part, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Solid Minerals Development, Sampson, before submitting his report, said his committee has recommended N539billion as the capital budget for the solid minerals development’s ministry in the 2025 Appropriation Bill.
Sampson noted that the executive had proposed N9billion as the capital vote for the ministry for the 2025 fiscal year, but that his committee believed that the amount was grossly inadequate to tap the enormous potential in the sector.
He said even when the ministry had an insignificant allocation last year, it raked in a total of N37billion as revenue.
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Oshiomhole, who is a member of the Appropriation Committee said no amount of funds appropriated to the Solid Minerals sub-sector would not achieve any meaningful results if the issue of illegal miners were not effectively tackled.
He suggested that the Federal Government should start dealing with illegal miners like the way it was currently attacking those involved in illegal oil bunkering in the Niger Delta region.
He said the country would have increased its current 0.05% to GDP to about 50% to GDP if government had stopped the activities of the illegal miners.
Oshiomhole said: “Whereas the Federal Government is ruthless with people who are doing illegal oil bunkering by deploying the Joint Military Task Force to deal with them, when it comes to illegal mining of solid minerals, the Federal Government changes. It’s like using different standards and I am very angry about that.
“If we have to fight this menace, we need to deploy the Army even to kill anyone who is involved in illegal pumping of oil. We should also deploy JTFs, comprising the Army, Police, Air force, against them.
“The ongoing illegal mining across the country is being carried out by retired generals and we know them.
“Yes, we know them. Nobody in Africa doesn’t know them. I did a letter to former President Muhammadu Buhari on the matter when he was in office.
“This is because a team that I sent to go and conduct the primary somewhere, reported back to me, the challenge of conducting primary elections in Zamfara because of the illegal miners.
“The team told me that those illegal miners procure arms exactly the same way the military is doing in South Sudan.
“They give them arms. They use choppers to come and cart away the gold and they take them out of this country and make billions of U.S. dollars.
“Unfortunately, the Federal Government is not doing what it should be doing. I took this letter to the former president, when I was the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress and I said, call the general to give you more briefing.
“In fact, what is happening or what is supposed to really happen in that part of the country was exactly what the general told me was going to happen.
“These guys have been weaponised by the illegal big men who deployed a secure territory. The weaponry was made to protect the Chinese and other foreigners and that’s why they actually are going to carry out the mining.
“So, the retired military officers, army officers, are involved in it.
“The day we can’t tell the truth, this country cannot flourish. That is what is going on with the mining sub-sector. It is not that we don’t know where it is. We have a whole survey of where we can find them across the length and breadth of Nigeria.
“Even as we are talking now, there are still those illegal miners and those guys are getting richer when they get poorer.
“Who can afford to buy the chopper, to land in an illegal mining site, cart away gold, and immediately, they are on the way to the airport, to take them out of the country. This is happening.
“My position is that we shouldn’t be lamenting. We should fix the problem. We should tell the executive, you must deploy exactly the same force that you deployed against illegal oil bunkering in the Niger Delta.
“That same force should be deployed to deal with criminals who have money. When I say criminals, it can be a retired general, it can be a retired permanent secretary, it can be a retired trade unionist, or a retired labour leader.”
The committee agreed with Oshiomhole’s suggestion and urged the various security agencies to take up the challenge because the shortest pathway for people in Nigeria is through diversification.
The chairman of the Senate Committee on Solid Minerals Development said members had unanimously agreed to drastically increase the budget of the ministry.
Sampson said: “It was agreed by everyone in the joint committee that the appropriation be rejected and reviewed upwards as well.
“So we held a number of meetings with the Minister for Budget and I think there were assurances that given the critical needs of the solid minerals sector, there would be an improvement if more money was channelled to it.
“This is given the fact that from the little vote the ministry had last year, they were able to ramp up revenue for the country to about $37 billion.
“When we met again with the Minister of Budget and other stakeholders, it was canvassed that the appropriation be reviewed to N539 billion for capital expenditure. This is even paltry compared to what other economies are injecting to drive the sector.”
Meanwhile, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Army, Senator Abdulaziz Yar’adua, had canvassed that the military and security institutions in the country should be removed from the envelope budgeting system.
He stated this when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Appropriation to present his panel’s report.
“The Army is undergoing tremendous transformation from five to eight divisions today, in line with the Nigerian Army Order of 2023.
“In this regard, there is the establishment of three additional divisions.
“By the implementation of the Nigerian Army order today we have new commands and new units which include the Nigerian Army Battle Fitness Centre and the Nigerian Army Cyber Warfare Command to ensure a secure cyber space for the Nigerian army.
“We also have the Nigerian Army Special Forces School and the Special Intelligence Command.
“Other units and commands include Land Forces Simulation Centre, Nigerian Army Aviation Command, Department of Special Services and Programmes, and we also have four special forces command.
“We have 401 Special Forces Brigade and 402 Special Forces Brigade among other units, commands and formations.
“In the 2025 Appropriation Bill, the army was given a total of N1,455,967,711,579, of which the personnel involvement amounts to N1,143,341,418,537, while the overhead cost amounts to N74,459,682,018.
“The total capital appropriation for 2025 envelope as given to the Nigerian Army amounts to N238,166,611,015.
“Based on the submission of the Nigerian Army, they required a total amount of N2,136,387,160,236. So there is a shortfall in overhead cost as well as the capital appropriation.
“The shortfall for the overhead cost amounts to N16,009,072,264, while the capital appropriation shortfall amounts to N664,410,412,401.”