Miners Association Wants Environmental Committee In 36 States

The Miners’ Association of Nigeria, has called on the Federal Government to establish Mineral Resources and Environmental Management Committee (MREMCO) in each of the 36 states to avert dichotomy over mining jurisdiction among tiers of government.

The national president of the association, Alhaji Sani Shehu, made the call in an interview with newsmen in Abuja, recently.

He said MREMCO, which comprised representatives from federal, state and local governments, and the host communities, would address any grievances on mining matters.

“There are cases where local governments feel they are the right owners of the mineral deposits.

“Let me clarify that solid minerals fall under the exclusive list in the Nigerian constitution, meaning that only the federal government has control over all the solid minerals in Nigeria.

“But because of lack of education or lack of awareness some local governments feel that they are the right owners and so sometimes when you have papers from the federal government to mine in a given local government, the local government authority sometime poses challenge to operators.

“The state governments too feels that they are rightful owners, afterall, the mining has to take place in a particular state so they feel that they are the people that are supposed to control the solid minerals.

He appealed to all tiers of government to collaborate with MREMCO to know their limits in the areas of mining.

Shehu said out of 44 solid minerals discovered by the Federal Government, few strategic ones should be identified and developed over a period of time

“The discovery of these minerals, I think is a step in the right direction. At least this is information from the Nigerian authority that these minerals are discovered but I want to state that many more minerals exist in Nigeria.

“But what is of value is to identify specific minerals, may be few out of 44, to develop them over a time.

“I am expecting that government takes time to develop these minerals over time and the development of such minerals should be done in phases; phase one to seven may be over 10 years,’’ he said.

The president said the discovery of the minerals would serve as economic information which could be used to improve the life of the investors and the public.

He noted that in the past, nobody knew that we had the 44 minerals existing, saying that the discovery was important to investors nationally and internationally.

He said that the concept of developing one mineral per local government was not effective as it required time and fund to do so.

“We want them to match their words with action, the initiative is good, and we applaud the minister for this initiative.

“But we are saying that for the initiative to be translated into action there must be funding to be able to implement it,’’ he said.