Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State has called for the deregulation of the mining sector in the country, as was done in the oil and gas sector, in order to open up the abundant opportunities in the sector for Nigerians.
Governor Sule made the call while delivering a goodwill message at the 60th Nigerian Mining and Geosciences Society (NMGS) annual international conference and exhibition, held at the Chida International Hotel Event Center, Abuja, on Tuesday.
While noting that the country is blessed with abundant mineral resources, the Governor insisted that the only way Nigeria could make headway in the mining sector is by undertaking a holistic liberalization of the sector.
According to him, deliberate steps similar to what transpired in the oil and gas sector must be taken in order to modernize Nigeria’s solid minerals sector, attract investment, and ensure sustainable growth.
The Governor recounted his experience after he was sworn into office in 2019. He said he was motivated to run for the governorship of the state because of the abundant solid and mineral resources available in the state.
However, he discovered that a lot needed to be done if Nasarawa State was to truly earn its title as the “Home of Solid Minerals.”
“When I became the Governor, two weeks later, the first place I visited was the Ministry of Solid Minerals Development. I visited in order to understand how many licenses were given. At that time, 416 licenses had been awarded in Nasarawa State. Yet, Nasarawa State Government was not receiving even one million naira as revenue in that area,” he said.
Governor Sule said he took the matter before the National Economic Council (NEC), seeking to understand why Nasarawa was not getting any revenue despite the high number of mining licenses operating in the state.
“My background is not in solid minerals but in oil. I came with the 13 percent derivation mentality. I was asking, where is the 13 percent derivation for all these 416 licenses? That was where the problem started, and that was when the game plan began,” he added.
With the focus then only on barite, tantalite, and precious metals, he sought to find out how to obtain a mining license and was dismayed to discover that all it took was a consent letter from the community.
“I said that will not work. That is why I urge you to help us in campaigning for innovation and transformation in the mining sector because the wealth of Nigeria is not only in oil but also in mining. We must go beyond a consent letter,” he stated.
The Governor said that in order to address the obvious shortcomings, his administration introduced an executive order mandating that any person carrying out mining activities at a commercial level must process the minerals within the state.
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“When we realized it was going to be tough to do that, in Nasarawa, we introduced an executive order stating that anybody mining in Nasarawa State, especially in commercial quantity, must also process in Nasarawa State. That was the beginning of our law. When we came up with that law, we faced a lot of opposition. But at the end of the day, Nasarawa State is now home to many processing plants,” he said.
He listed some of the companies, including the biggest lithium mining and processing plant in Nigeria, recently commissioned by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, with a larger plant owned by Canmax to be commissioned in the next three months, as well as smaller companies in the areas of tin mining and processing.
He pointed out that the steps his administration has taken to reposition the mining sector in Nasarawa State are similar to what China did to become a global player.
“This is what I discovered China did. It is not about the money. It is about the transfer of technology so that our people can learn everything about mining. We must go beyond just talking about it.
“I’m not having it easy because there are influential individuals in the country who are only interested in making quick money in mining. But quick money is not going to help Nigeria. What is going to help Nigeria is the industrialization of the mining sector,” he stated.
He said that even though he is still facing stiff challenges in implementing the executive order, he remains hopeful that with persistence, the state will continue to record successes.
In a welcome address, the President of the Nigerian Mining and Geosciences Society, Professor Akinade Olatunji, said that the essence of the conference was for professionals and critical stakeholders in the sector to brainstorm and fine-tune innovative ways to fast-track feasible solutions to the development challenges inherent in the country’s mining sector.
The high point of the event was the conferment of a fellowship award on Governor Sule in recognition of his laudable development strides in the mining sector.
