A university lecturer, Dr Francis Beka, has urged the Federal Government to demonstrate strong commitment for accelerated development of the solid minerals sector by allocating about 5% of the nation’s oil revenue to the growth of the sector.

Beka, who is of the Department of Geology and Centre for Petroleum Geosciences, University of Port Harcourt made the recommendation in Port Harcourt while delivering a keynote address in a sensitisation workshop organised by the Raw Materials Research and Development Council (RMRDC).

In his paper titled “Rationale for Effective Appraisal of Nigeria’s Solid Mineral Resource Potential for Raw Materials Development,” Beka reiterated the urgent need to plough the excess funds from the oil and gas sector to grow the solid minerals base as a parallel sector to further enhance the future of Nigerian economic development further recommended that coal should contribute at least 25% to the power generation mix in Nigeria, noting that the nation has over 650 million tons of proven reserves of coal while coal resources alone contribute about 70% to power generation in the world.

“Today, the solid minerals sector has suffered unprecedented neglect because of the ready availability of easy funds for the growth of the petroleum sector,” he said, adding that if tapped, the much reserves of solid minerals sector would create teeming employment, help to stem poverty, reduce urban migration and conflicts in the country.

The window of opportunities associated with the growth of the mineral resource sector, he explained, was wide and cutting across the realm of national development issues especially in the anticipated key growth areas of  infrastructure development, human capacity building, institutional capacity strengthening, including support sectors as well as community growth and sustainable development.

Raising alarm over possible drying of the nation’s oil wells in future, the lecturer said the wisest thing was to develop other sectors on which base would lean the economic survival of our country and urged government to turn substantial attention to other sectors instead of continued dependence on the oil and gas sector.

He also urged government to put in place the enabling environment that would encourage private sector participation and investment in the solid minerals sector stressing that raw materials development from the solid mineral sector is a key area that is crying for national attention.

In his remark, Rivers State Co-ordinator of RMRDC, Mrs Felicia Chilaka said outside oil and gas, Rivers State had abundant reserves of solid minerals waiting to be tapped and challenged investors to take advantage of the situation.

She also called for reviving of the moribund state owned West African Glass Industry as the raw material needed was largely sand noting that if done, it would create employment, create wealth and expand market for glass products amongst other advantages.

Participants commended the council for the programme and charged RMRDC to come up more regularly with such workshop. They also pleaded that the council should develop raw materials resources map of Rivers State to guide investors as well as extending the programmes to local government areas and local communities.