From Oluseyi Dasilva Ilorin
An industrialist, Engineer Babatunde Bamidele has joined his voice to Nigerians clamouring alternative source of income for Nigeria as a way out of uncertainty and fluctuations in oil prices in the world.
Babatunde who said he has been in the mining and extractive industry since the past twenty years said that his industry is a sure alternative source of income better compared to the petroleum industry.
The industrialist made this assertion while being honoured with a chieftaincy title of Babalaje if Ikoyi Kingdom on Saturday at the palace Oba Abdulyekeen Oladipupo Ayinla IV, Onioyi of Ikoyi.
He said that the challenge of youth unemployment is best solved by empowering miners and operators in the extractive industry in a way that they would be able to employ the youths, because government cannot provide the jobs for all its youths.
The Balaje of Ikoyi also reiterated that as much as the activity illegal miners remain a crime, they exist as a matter of necessity in that the need for a means of livelihood pushed most of them into the act and until government provides alternative source of livelihood, the fight against illegal mining would be a mirage.
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