Nigeria’s solid minerals sector has become one major concern to many citizens across various divides. This indeed borders on the illegal and uncoordinated exploitation of the sector by both foreigners and their Nigerian collaborators.  

Fervently, former Labour leader and Chairman of the Senate Committee on the Interior, Senator Adams Oshiomhole, decried the continued abuse in the sector that ought to be firmly in the grips of the government.

It is indeed not the first time this sort of alarm is being raised on the nation’s solid mineral fields which have been hijacked by those he described as “retired Generals” in collaboration with foreign crooks.

Oshiomhole addressed the media recently, recalling that as National Chairman of his political party ,the All Progressives Congress, APC, he had sent a report to the then president, Muhammadu Buhari on how some retired Generals and foreigners were stealing the country’s mineral resources, stressing that all his efforts came to no purpose.

In a similar disposition, in December 2023, the Minister of Solid Minerals, Dele Alake, who is believed to be President Bola Tinubu’s close ally, had at a budget defence at the National Assembly, also raised the alarm on the deep involvement of “powerful Nigerians” in illegal mining and sponsorship of terrorism in different parts of the country. Alake said that government was “identifying them with both kinetic and non-kinetic means”. Till date, no one has been named, let alone brought to book. It is worrisome that Oshiomhole would be alerting Nigerians on this same issue over 14 months after Alake’s media briefing simply shows that even Tinubu, like his predecessor, has been unwilling or unable to rise to the occasion as Commander-in-Chief. If two presidents could not tackle this problem with all the powers at their disposal, it is understandable why the situation would continue to linger.

It is widely believed that the authorities are not willing to step on ‘big toes’ reaping well from these mining activities which is at the detriment of the nation. There is a powerful cartel or ring in the sector that makes “offenders” intractable. It might not require more than a passing investigation to reveal the identities of those concerned. What is perhaps lacking is the will power to do the needful.

Stakeholders worry that the government is always very eager to deploy the Nigerian Army, Navy, Air Force, Police and Civil Defence Corps to destroy artisanal refineries in the creeks, while killing and arresting the operators. The same eagerness has not been deployed against illegal miners in the North where insecurity has become almost intractable for the past 16 years.

Therefore, we call on the federal government to take decisive actions, and confront the evil forces robbing Nigeria maximum benefits of its vast solid minerals endowment.

A situation where a handful of “big men” plunder the resources of the nation unchecked is totally unacceptable. When an anomaly like this prevails for so long, it is often the case that powerful people inside the machinery of government are also involved in the plunder.

The culprits should be immediately named, shamed and prosecuted. 

We counsel that would-be investors in the mineral sector should follow the lawful process and obtain the requisite permits.

Apart from curtailing the loss of revenue, the proper management of the sector would ensure a strict compliance to sustainable environmental practice.