The Federal Government has expressed its resolve to work with the government of Nasarawa State for the exploitation and development of mineral resources in the State, a statement from the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development, MMSD has said.
The statement, which was signed by Mr Ayodeji Adeyemi, Special Adviser on Media to the Minister of Mines and Steel Develop, Arc Olamilekan Adegbite said the Minister gave the assurance during the visit of the Executive Governor of Nasarawa State, Engineer Abdullahi Sule to the Ministry on Tuesday.
According to the Statement, “Adegbite said that the ministry was resolved to avoid a repeat of the Zamfara experience in Nasarawa State, in which bandits were largely in charge of the gold mining in that state.”
The Special Adviser quoted the minister as saying that “gold had been discovered along the Abuja, Nasarawa axis through the National Integrated Mineral Exploration Project (NIMEP) undertaken by the ministry, adding that the Project which had cost fifteen billion Naira had generated troves of geosciences data that got foreign investors excited about the juicy mining prospects in the country.
The minister said: “It is a pleasure to receive the governor of Nasarawa State in my office today, and this should not be a surprise because Nasarawa State is the home of solid minerals in the country.”
Arc Adegbite recalled “an earlier discussion about recent discoveries of precious minerals along the Nasarawa, Abuja axis,” stating that government has been discussing the prospect.
He allayed the concerns of Nasarawa State government about the menace of illegal gold mining snowballing in the state due to the large deposits of gold in the state, saying that the ministry was working with relevant security agencies to prevent such undesired situation.
“We know that gold mining attracts a lot of undesirables,” the minister said, adding that “wherever illegal miners smell gold, if I may use the word smell, whenever they have inkling that there is gold, it somehow attracts these undesirable elements.”
While he assured that government is working to address the challenge of illegal mining, he expressed prepared to work with the government of Nasarawa State to prevent illegal miners from operating in the State: “We don’t want banditry to come to Nasarawa and Abuja on the trail of gold as it has unfortunately happened in Zamfara,” he said, adding that the federal government had reiterated its ban on gold mining in Zamfara due to banditry.
“You would recall that about a week or two ago, the government reiterated its ban in Zamfara. Mining was actually banned in Zamfara in April 2019, and about a few weeks ago, government reiterated the ban and also had to declare a no fly zone. So we do not want a repeat of that in Nasarawa State,” he said.
Adegbite added that the ministry had a special mines police that was saddled with curbing the menace of illegal mining in the country. “We will be working with security agencies, possibly bringing in the military to make sure that we prevent such an occurrence of illegal mining in this axis of Nasarawa and the Federal Capital Territory. So I have been talking with the governor and we are going to involve security apparatus,” he said.
In his response, the Executive Governor of Nasarawa State said the state was prepared to work with the ministry to prevent the snowballing of illegal mining in the state, revealing that his administration was indeed concerned about the threat of illegal mining and its associated vices.
The governor thanked the minister for the “wonderful reception” accorded the team, while commending the NIMEP program undertaken by the federal government.
