Research Professor of Law, Peter Terkaa Akper to deliver 7th Inaugural lecture Thursday

 

Prof. Peter Terkaa Akper, OFR, SAN.

Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) who is also Research Professor of Law at the Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (NIALS), Peter Terkaa Akper is set to deliver the 7th Inaugural Lecture of the Institute by 11.00AM on Thursday July 25, 2024 at the Auditorium, Musa Yar’adua Centre, Abuja, Nigeria.  The Inaugural Lecture, which will be chaired by the Director General of NIALS, Professor Muhammed Tawfiq Ladan will showcase Prof Akper’s research, innovations and contribution to knowledge in the area of Mining Law and Policy.

Akper, a renowned expert in mining law and policy is set to deliver inaugural lecture titled “Toward Realising the Potentials of the Nigerian Mining Sector: Policy, Legal and Institutional Reform Imperatives for Nigeria,” as his contribution towards ensuring the realization of Nigeria’s mineral potential and its increased contribution to GDP.

The Legal Luminary, who served as pioneer Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association Section on Business Law (NBA/SBL) Mining Law Committee will be interrogating why the potentials of the Mining Sector have remained largely unrealizable despite efforts by successive administrations to reposition the Mining Sector as a source of revenue and foreign exchange earnings for the country. It will also highlight Nigeria’s mineral endowments which can to leveraged to promote industrial development of the country.

THE TRUTH reports that Prof Akper’s interest in mining law and advocacy spans over twenty-seven years during which he advocated for reforms in the legal and policy framework governing the sector. Inspired by the need to evolve a realistic framework for sustainable development of ASM in Nigeria, he began the pursuit of an M.Phil PhD program in Mining Law and Policy in 1997, at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile Ife. It is pertinent to note that Akper’s academic work is about the first PhD in Mining Law and Policy at the Faculty of Law in OAU, Ile Ife.

Discussing his trajectory in mining law and policy as well as some challenges while pursuing the M.Phil PhD program which he completed in 2008, Akper explained that it was difficult to locally access materials and other resources needed for the research when he began. This is because it was about the first PhD in Mining Law and Policy at the OAU. “It was like breaking into a new field that required gathering novel information on the subject matter,” he said, adding that it was the Visiting Research Scholar’s Programme at the Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy (CEPMLP), University of Dundee, Scotland – a globally renowned institution for natural resources law that he benefitted from through the financial assistance of His Excellency, Governor George Akume, CON, then Governor of Benue State, that enabled him to access relevant materials to successfully complete his Doctoral research under the guidance of Professor Ademola Popoola, FNIALS.

According to him, “my supervisor, Professor Ademola Popoola needed to be sure that the case studies I had chosen (Tanzania and Ghana) were places where the strategy for formalization that I proposed in my work had been successfully implemented by insisting that I visit the countries to personally confirm the validity of the strategy. So I went to Arusha in Tanzania where the gemstone Tanzanite is mined in the  Merelani District where organized Small Scale Mining Operations were carried out and Akwatia District in the, Eastern Province  of Ghana where Galamsey operations were prevalent.”

It was at CEPMLP, that Akper, was made to understand and appreciate the intersections between law, economics and international politics on the development of natural resources and how Nigeria can harness the energies and prospecting ingenuities of Artisanal and Small-Scale Miners for national development if their operations are properly formalized and regulated. This was more so as over 90 per cent of mining activities in the country are carried out by Artisanal miners.

Akper’s painstaking illuminating research produced (for Nigeria) the first instructive document which critically analyzed the legal and institutional framework for formalization and regulation of ASM operations in Nigeria, titled, “Framework for the Regulation of Artisanal Mining in Nigeria.” The research document is adjudged to be a unique framework by which Nigeria can sustainably develop its ASM operations.

Akper is grateful to Professor Onje Gye Wado who encouraged him to venture into the unchartered area of Mining Law and Policy in Nigeria;  Prof Andrew Speed of CEPMLP for his counsel which helped to refocus his research on Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining in Nigeria and Dr. Taiwo Ogunleye who constantly encouraged him towards completing the research even when it became quite difficult. He said “I have since through continuous research and writings broadened my knowledge of this area of law beyond the regulation of ASM which I will formally discuss  at the Inaugural Lecture.”

As a Co-Thematic lead of the Mining Thematic Group of the Mining and Manufacturing Policy Commission (MMPC) of the Nigeria Economic Summit Group (NESG) he is poised to put his research experience towards advocating for policy and legal reforms designed to development Nigeria’s Mining sector.

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