Illegal mining major threat to legitimate operators – Fmr Miners President

A former National President of the Miners Association of Nigeria, Alhaji Sani Shehu, has called for stronger enforcement against illegal mining.

According to him, legitimate operators remain major victims of the practice.

Shehu in an interview with our reporter on Tuesday in Abuja, stressed the need for government to strengthen law enforcement across the country’s mining areas.

He said illegal mining was particularly damaging when carried out on licensed mining sites, where legitimate operators had invested heavily to obtain licences and complied with regulatory and community obligations.

“We paid for licence, we followed the process, we paid the community, we used all sorts of things to invest in order to get mining licence and a group of people from nowhere will now ravage the place,” he said.

He said legitimate miners do not have the authority to arrest or detain illegal operators and had to rely on government and security agencies to enforce the law.

According to him, the government has a responsibility to maintain law and order in the mining sector, as it does in other sectors.

“Anything that is illegal is unlawful and part of the role of government apart from ensuring and protecting the life and properties of the citizenry is to ensure law and order.

“Law and order in every sector, including the mining sector. It is the task of government to ensure law and order in the mines steel and i think they are doing their best,” he said.

Shehu, also Chairman of the Executive Council of the ECOWAS Federation of Chambers of Mines (ECEFCOM), while acknowledging the government’s efforts, said they were inadequate, given the challenges facing the growing mining sector.

Stakeholders, he said, including members of MAN and other industry groups, were supporting government’s efforts to combat illegal mining and reposition the sector.

He, however, expressed optimism that the challenge would reduce significantly as the mining industry continued to develop.

“But all these are temporary challenges that affect a sector that is growing.

“I hope in the next few years, the issue of illegal mining will be reduced drastically,” he said.

On Nigeria’s mineral resources and the global energy transition, the former miners president said the country could leverage its lithium and other critical minerals to reposition itself in the global market.

Shehu said the establishment of lithium processing plants would help Nigeria derive greater value from its mineral resources and participate more meaningfully in the global energy transition.

He said government was taking appropriate steps by attracting major mining companies with the technical and financial capacity to establish processing plants.

“They are the ones that have technical and financial capacity to establish a plant using the lithium as raw material and I think that is what is happening.

“We have seen one in Nasarawa. I think another one is coming from Nasarawa too.

“So I think the Nigerian government is doing the right thing by encouraging these big players to come and establish a processing plant for lithium and other materials.

“But I think that is a challenge for our big businessmen. Nigeria we have so many big businessmen that should be encouraged to also come into mining but it is not proper to hands off the development of mining to foreigners.

“I think it is strategically wrong. There is a need to also encourage our indigenous businessmen to venture into it because they have the capacity to do it,” he said.