The Honorable Minister, Ministry of Mines and Steel Development, Arc. Olamilekan Adegbite will lead other big wigs in the industry to speak at a Webinar on Thursday, June 25, 2020.
The policy makers and industry operators will discuss the effects of COVID-19 pandemic on the sector, as well as evolve strategies to address emerging challenges.
“They will deliberate on how the Nigerian mining sector is coping with the pandemic and whether Nigeria can diversify its economy to create more revenue from the sector,” says Ishaku Kigbu, Media Officer at the World Bank-funded Minerals Sector Support for Economic Diversification (MinDiver), on Wednesday.
Organised by i-MINE, a UK based firm, the Webinar tagged Africa Mining Series ‘Nigerian Mining: Now and Post Covid-19,’ will feature Arc Olamilekan Adegbite as Keynote Speaker on how the industry is coping during the pandemic.
The Webinar which is organised in collaboration with the UK Department for International Trade will also feature the Director-General, Nigeria Geological Survey Agency, NGSA, Dr Abdulrazaq Garba and the CEO of Thor Explorations, Mr Segun Lawson.
Discussions will be centred on what Nigeria needs to do to diversify its economy so as to generate more revenue from the mining sector since it has become clear that over reliance on the volatile oil sector is harming Nigeria’s economic prospects as demonstrated by the fall in oil prices during the Pandemic.
Kigbu explained that with concern that “the World Bank had recently noted that the pandemic has shown that the Nigerian government must do more to diversify its economy,” and that mining can be a source of the highly desired resource diversification.
He said: “One Company leading the way in Nigeria’s quest to diversify its economy is Thor Exploration. Impressively, the company has begun constructing Nigeria’s first Commercial Gold Mine Construction that will start producing gold in 2021.”
“To this end, its CEO, Mr Segun Lawson will be joining the Minister as a panelist to share his experience in developing Nigeria’s mining sector and the future prospects of the sector.”
“The Director General, Nigeria Geological Survey, Dr Abdulrazaq Garba, will also share insight on the ongoing government exploration programme known as the National Intergated Mineral Exploration Project (NIMEP) aimed at developing more bankable data.”
“Based on the preliminary outcome of the ongoing NIMEP Project, Dr Garba will discuss whether or not Nigeria has the necessary opportunities to attract major investment into the mining sector so as to enable significant contribution and growth from the sector to the national economy.”
You are highly encouraged to attend.
To attend, kindly log on to http://conta.cc/2Y5BbYC to be part of the event that will last between 2 and 3pm on Thursday, June 25, 2020.
