Fayemi Calls for Removal of Mining from Exclusive List

Kasim Sumaina in Abuja

The Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Dr Kayode Fayemi, has called for the removal of mining from the exclusive list to concurrent legislative list to allow states play more prominent roles in mining issues in the country.

He said the call became necessary in order to make the mineral and mining sector more profitable.

Fayemi disclosed this while delivering his keynote address at the fifth annual lecture of the School of Management Technology, Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA), Ondo State.

In the lecture titled: “Mineral Resource Management for National Cohesion and Progress”, he said the present situation where state governments were not adequately involved in the administration of mineral titles despite bearing the brunt of impact of resource exploitation, grossly affects growth of the sector.

The minister, in a statement by his Special Assistant, Olayinka Oyebode, on Sunday in Abuja, said: “The country needed to take a cue from her experience in the oil rich Niger Delta, where oil riches rather than cementing national cohesion, became a source of discord and a toxic bone of contention in the polity and where decades of oil exploitation have resulted in a legacy of ecological degradation, trans-generational poverty and violence.”

Details later…