By Andrew Oota
Minister of solid minerals ,Dele Alake has apologized to the Senate over his inability to honour invitations,stressing that as one of those who fought for democracy ,he could never had deliberately ignored invitations from parliament.
Mr Alake also told the Senate that the sector is working on incorporating artisanal miners in a structured plan rather than tag them illegal miners .
The Senate committee chairman Ekong Sampson had summoned the minister to appear before the committee to explain why turned down series of invitation and threatened a zero allocation for the ministry .
According to the minister, “I would have been here a long time ago, but I had some official assignments on behalf of the President who had told me aside from been a minister I could be asked to carry out any other assignment .
“I am one of those who fought for democracy and I will always have respect for the institutions of democracy .
“I have the highest respect for this institution because it is very critical and I have no reason to disrespect the parliament.
The minister admitted that diversification of the economy was the way to go and that the minerals sector will be the next destination.
“The solid minerals is the next petroleum for Nigeria . Illegal mining is old in Nigeria but we will keep fighting it.
“We must create the right environment for investors ,the international investors are already on my neck asking questions about which minerals to invest into because they have seen reasons to invest here.
“The United States have indicated interest to invest into that sector in Nigeria”.
He maintained that Nigeria must generate a Geo -scientific data to ascertain what minerals the country has to attract foreign investors .
“No serious investors will come into any sector if they don’t have the right information about what they are coming to do.
“We need to play big in the industry and for us to do that we need data.
“It is quite easy to define illegal miners as those who lack the authority of the Federal Government to mine, those who mine in outlawed areas and those who mine in areas not allocated to them by licence .
“The policy of the ministry is to encourage those fund mining without licence ,such as artisanal miners to formalize by forming and obtaining licence to authorize their operations . The second category of people mining in outlawed areas such as national parks ,schools,churches ,mosques etc are criminals that must be prosecuted and jailed for economic sabotage . The third category are subjected to the administrative penalties and conflict resolution operations of the mining cadastral office .
“We are making a case for a special , Multi -Agency mines surveillance Team on the ground ,and a technological savvy satellite security mapping from the air to combat the second category of illegal ,criminal miners whose contribution to the massive revenue leakage is most astounding. The committee is encouraged to imagine the cabals of violent ,wealthy and criminally forfeited insurgence force that we are confronting in making generous funds availlable for the onslaught ”
“While waiting the appropriation , we have held series of meetings with the National Security Adviser ,ministries of Defence, Nigerian Police and Interior to formulate a combative strategy that will hit the target ,prosecute offenfers and restore law and order”.
