Association Urges Wealthy Nigerians To Invest In Mining Sector

The Miners Association of Nigeria has urged wealthy Nigerian entrepreneurs to invest in the mining to prevent “indiscriminate influx of foreigners to the sector“.

The National President of the association, Alhaji Sani Shehu, made the call in an interview with journalists in Abuja.

“We have Nigerians who are rich enough to invest in mining sectors and if 10 per cent of these rich Nigerians can invest into mining sector.

“I mean the foreign investors, we may not need them as much as we need them now, and part of the challenges is lukewarm attitude of our Nigerian businessmen. They find it difficult to invest in mining.“

He said that in most cases, foreign investors had a way of failing to comply with the rules and regulations guiding mining in the country.

Shehu said that other challenges facing the sector were lack of funding, lack of access to mining sites (transportation), and lack of proper attention from the government.

He, therefore, urged the Federal Government to accord the mining sector all the attention it deserved to grow and develop.

“There has been a lot of pronouncement, a lot of declaration of intent by the government to develop the sector, but they are too slow. We are appealing to them to see the sector as indispensible to economic development.

“They have transport as part of the major challenge; government can now build a rail system. I am happy that the government is reviving our rail system now; such rail system should be connected to the mines for easy evacuation.

“Some of our mining areas do not have access roads; sometimes one has to trek for two to three hours to get to the mining sites.

“Government should upgrade the roads to the mining sites. The roads do not have to be covered with bitumen to enable miners to get to the mines with little or no difficulty so that the materials can easily be evacuated to the cities and ports for exportation; so these are things that will assist towards the development of the sector,“ he said.