*Photo: Dele Ayanleke, National President, Miners Association of Nigeria, speaking at the NEITI Public Presentation of 2022 & 2023 Solid Minerals Audit Report in Abuja on Wednesday*
National President of Miners Association of Nigeria (MAN),
Mr. Dele Ayanleke has said the Solid Minerals sector holds the ace for accelerating the spread of wealth creation through massive job opportunities for the teeming youth and development of cottage industries.
He stated this on Wednesday in his speech at the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) Public Presentation of 2022 & 2023 Solid Minerals Audit Report in Abuja.
According to the MAN president,
“As a player in the Nigerian mining industry, while not berating the role of the oil and gas sector of our economy yesterday, today and tomorrow, I can boldly say that the Solid Minerals sector holds the ace for accelerating the spread of wealth creation through massive job opportunities for our teeming youth and development of cottage industries.”
Ayanleke added that “Nature has been so kind on us for the even distribution of the deposits of these minerals across the 774 local governments of this nation.
“Therefore, what remains for us as a nation is the strategic exploitation of these endowments and judicious management of the accruing social and economic benefits.
“It is imperative to state, however, that the nation has to get more committed to confront the various challenges inhibiting the growth of the sector and preventing it from fulfilling its natural mandate.”
He noted that “Among these challenges is insecurity which has yielded the mining space to both local and foreign possessors of lethal weapons. So, the issue of security has to be treated as a national emergency.
“Also, the human, logistic and infrastructural capacities of the regulatory agency have to be tremendously improved upon if the reigning regime of illegality and opacity in the sector is to be dismantled. The recent commendable initiative of the launching of Mining Marshall by the Ministry of Solid Minerals Development, under Dr Dele Alake, is a tip of the iceberg. The focus of capacity improvement has to target the technical departments and agencies of the Ministry.
He argued that “for this re-emerging sector to evolve into a veritable pivot for the diversification and broadening of our national economy, nothing should be spared to ensure a unified governance structure of the legal and regulatory frameworks that will be acceptable to and complied with by all the national and sub national entities. The current reign of anarchy in the sector is not only throwing spanners into all the past and present initiatives to develop the sector, it will continue to dwarf the potentials of the sector and capable of making this nation a potentially mining nation in perpetuity.”
Ayanleke commended the Executive Secretary of NEITI, Dr Orji Ogbonaya Orji and his management team, the Auditors and the National Stakeholders Working Group of NEITI, under the leadership of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator George Akuma, “for coming up with this report that will aid our nation to accelerate the process of our economic recovery to prosperity.”
