“…our appreciation goes to the Honourable Minister and the entire Ministry of Solid Minerals Development, for providing the platform for this expression over the years.”
*Photo: Mr Dele Ayanleke, President, Miners Association of Nigeria*
WELCOME ADDRESS FROM MINERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA
Year after year, the annual Nigeria Mining Week has been growing in leaps and in bounds to live up to its mandate as the prime event shaping and rocking the Nigerian minerals and mining landscape.
As this mandate resonates and echoes across the global mining jurisdictions, I am highly honored and privileged to welcome all and sundry to yet another explosive edition, which is the nineth of its type, but has promised, from all indications, to dwarf the records of any of the past editions.
Your Excellencies and distinguished eminent personalities, as we converge again this year to do an assessment of our efforts to rejig our policy guides for the re-emergence of the mining sector as a critical pivot to support the diversification and broadening our national economy, it is incumbent on us to sincerely and patriotically examine those factors militating against the envisaged accelerated growth of the sector, with the view to taking audacious steps to confront those challenges and set the sector on the pedestal of mandate fulfilment.
The present administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, envisioned the renewal of the lost and dying hopes of Nigerians. As an offshoot of the Renewed Hope of Mr President, our Honourable Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dr Henry Oladele Alake, set a 7-Point Agenda at the beginning of his oversight of the industry, to domesticate the Renewed Hope Agenda in the sector.
Therefore, if we will build the mining sector, from the inside out, to be the cornerstone of our national economy, in line with the central theme of this year’s edition; and if the compelling elements of the 7-Point Agenda of our Honourable Minister will make appreciable positive impacts on the sector, the challenge around our natural resource governance must be addressed head on.
I want to reiterate here today, that by the virtue of the spread of the deposits of the various minerals across the 774 local council areas of this nation, the mining sector holds the ace for even distribution of wealth to the grass roots and for accelerated migration of Nigerians from poverty through the value chain development as encapsulated in the 7-Point Agenda of our Honourable Minister.
It is on this note, that we, hereby, make passionate appeals to our office holders at the national and subnational levels to respect our constitutionality and the provisions of the extant laws in the governance of our mineral resources.
I wish to humbly submit that this is not the time to exhibit exuberance or engage in unguided and staggered experimentation of a novel governance regime that will make our dream of a highly beneficial economic sector becomes a mirage.
To accelerate the growth of our national mining economy, huge investments are needed; and as no investor will like to fish in troubled waters, this is the time to engender a unified, acceptable and pragmatic legal and regulatory frameworks that will address and ameliorate all the issues giving impetus to the present operating chaotic regulatory environment.
Your Excellencies, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, permit me to pause here and express our loads of appreciation to all those who have been instrumental to sustaining these conversations through thick and thin.
The first port of call in the train of our appreciation goes to the Honourable Minister and the entire Ministry of Solid Minerals Development, for providing the platform for this expression over the years.
PwC has remained solid in dishing out the contents enriching this platform; while the marketing and the organizational prowess of the Vuka Group of South Africa has been awesome.
To our sponsors, exhibitors, professionals and academia, delegates, local and international media partners, we say thank you for your support over the years.
While we all look forward to a fruitful and successful international conference and exhibitions, it our hope that this beneficial partnership will continue to blossom in the interest of our national economy and individual businesses.
May God bless you all and bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Thank you.
‘Dele Ayanleke,
National President,
Miners Association of Nigeria.
Tuesday, 19th November, 2024. Abuja.
