*Photo: Hajia Fatima Umaru-Shinkafi*
Zamfara Professionals League on Sunday thanked President Bola Tinubu for the re-appointment of the Executive Secretary of Solid Minerals Development Fund (SMDF), Hajia Fatimah Shinkafi.
The League, in a statement by its President, Yunana Shibkau, said Shinkafi has proven that professionals of Northern origin could perform excellently in financial sector by building fragile financial institutions such as the SMDF into solid intervention platforms to solve pertinent national challenges.
It recalled the initiative of SMDF to partner with the Africa Finance Corporation, AFC to provide funding for early stage mineral development projects such as exploration funding.
The project, which attracted 94 applicants in the first year, recorded 14 hopefuls currently in the second stage of competing for the funds.
It said extending her term will enable the administration of Shinkafi at the SMDF to execute new projects such as the gold aggregator scheme which has yielded billions of naira worth of gold reserves to the Central Bank of Nigeria.
Reacting to allegations of tenure limitation in a newspaper, the League said the provisions of sections 34. 35 qnd 36 of the Nigerian Mining and Minerals Act do not set a limit on the tenure of the Executive Secretary , adding that the President acted in accordance with the law.
“It is our position that, considering the fragile and pioneering status of the SMDF, it will be suicidal to hand over to a novice who lacks the institutional memory that has enabled the SMDF to grow its teething years.
“That will disrupt the trail blazing initiatives of the current administration and cause it to lose focus from its efforts to build a financial intervention agency that must ensure returns on investment,” it said
