- Senate recommends N539b capital budget for Ministry of Solid Minerals
The Senate, on Friday, accused some unnamed retired military generals as being behind the numerous illegal mining activities taking place across the country.
This is even as it recommended the sum of N539billion as the capital expenditure allocation for the Ministry of Solid Minerals in the 2025 Appropriation Bill.
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 had 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.
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% GDP to about 50% GDP if the 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 themthe 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, and 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 wrote 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, land in an illegal mining site, cart away gold, and immediately, 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.”
