Industralising Mining in Nasarawa

The federal government’s Solid Minerals Development Fund recently visited Governor Abdullahi Sule to seek for partnership, with a view to industrialise mining in Nasarawa State, writes Igbawase Ukumba

Nasarawa State, known as “Home of Solid Minerals,” has tremendous potentials in solid minerals. It is on record that the state is blessed with the largest deposits of several viable solid minerals including cooking coal, barite, lead, zinc and lithium, as well as playing host to most of the active solid minerals development companies.

This is even as the state is currently producing barite that is used in drilling petroleum, and marble that is sold across the country. However, the fact is that at the moment about 70 per cent of mining activities in Nasarawa State are being artisanal.

Perhaps, it was in this vein that the Solid Minerals Development Fund, whose mandate is to partner states and the private sector with a view to change the mining industry for good, visited Governor Sule.

Speaking during the agency’s visit to the Nasarawa State governor, Managing Director of the fund, Hajiya Fatima Umaru Shinkafi, expressed that artisanal mining activities in Nasarawa State was  an aberration, thus there was need to do something about it. She said it should not be ignored and the artisans should not be criminalise.

Hajiya Fatima, however, said: “We are here to support them. At the same time, we want a future horizon that is bigger. We want industrialisation. We want to commercialise these mines. We want data generation. We want job creation. We want wealth creation. We want social security. We want environmental considerations. We want green inclusion in what we are doing.”

She explained that the fund chose to come to Nasarawa State as its first official engagement in 2023, not only because of its tremendous potentials, but because Governor Sule has a private sector background, and is result driven and an achiever.

“I am very passionate about Nasarawa State because I am aware of the tremendous potentials. I am also passionate because I know that the captain that sails the ship is a private sector driven, result driven doer. He is an executioner and I like to work with people who get things done. I have his history more than he knows. I will not turn it into an eulogy session for him, but I am aware he gets things done. And I like people who get things done, with the private sector driven mind that he has brought to Nasarawa State,” Hajiya Fatima added.

The MD of the Solid Minerals Development Fund, however, assured that the fund was available to support artisanal miners in the state, especially that Nasarawa State has comparative advantage in terms of security compared to other states. She added that her agency wanted to extend industrialisation beyond limestone and cement, as Nasarawa State was extremely rich and wealthy.

While identifying capital as major challenge for most states, especially as the states were torn between financing health, roads, infrastructure, salaries and so many demands that there was no way with the meagre resources coming to the state so that they could make huge investment in the solid minerals sector, Fatima said the fund was coming to the rescue by bringing together diverse investment and financing capabilities. 

“But what you do bring to the table is much more than money and that is the institutional support, the community support that I am looking forward to enjoy from this relationship. We on the other hand have leveraged federal support to translate a lot of opportunities into reality and projects,” Hajiya Fatima assured.

Nevertheless, the administration of Governor Sule has also been making frantic efforts towards developing value chain for all solid minerals deposits in Nasarawa State.

Sule’s intervention is coming at a moment the mining sector requires urgent reforms so as to minimise illegal mining and to improve on insecurity in Nasarawa State. Hence, when speaking at a public function recently in Lafia, the Nasarawa State Governor said it was important to speak about security whenever solid minerals development was mentioned. 

According to him , “because in Nigeria, solid minerals development and security go together. This is one area of our economy with great potentials, but will require urgent reforms so as to minimize illegal mining and to improve on insecurity in the country.

Consequently, in his bid to reform the solid minerals sector of Nasarawa State, Governor Abdullahi Sule recently signed an Executive Order restricting all mining host communities from bequeathing Right of Occupancy of lands to entities intending to carry out mining activities in the state.

 The state Commissioner for Environment and Natural Resources, Hon. Yakubu Kwanta, disclosed this at a press briefing in Lafia.

The signed Executive Order No. 02, 2022 by the governor, according to Kwanta, is to protect mining host communities in the state from insecurity and other forms of criminality, and the need to provide institutional support for technical assistance to Artisanal Miners.

The Commissioner added: “the Executive Order directed all Mining Entities arriving the state with authority of the federal government to carry out mining in the state to report to the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources to verify their legal status, citizenship and background before settlement in the communities in collaboration with security agencies. 

“All Mining Entities arriving and doing business in the state must report to the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources for the purpose of documentation and identification of their operational status for peace and security.”

The Executive Order No. 02, 2022 also mandated Mining Entities doing business in the state to ensure that they pay all mining and other related taxes, levies, fees, charges promptly to the Central Billing System domiciled with the Nasarawa State Internal Revenue Service.

“Also Holders of Mining Lease or License were restricted by the Executive Order No 02 to the powers conferred on them by the Minerals and Mining Act, 2007 and the Land Use Act, 1978 and to ensure restoration and reparation of the integrity of the degraded land and environment as required by these Acts.

“All Mining Entities are to ensure that physical development of structures must be approved by the Nasarawa State Urban Development Authority in conjunction with the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources.

“The state government, as well the traditional institutions and security agencies in the state, will commence total enforcement of the Executive Order and initiate investigation and prosecution of defaulters in accordance with the law,” Kwanta stressed.

When hosting the Managing Director of the Solid Minerals Development Fund, Hajiya Fatima Umaru Shinkafi and her team in the Government House, Lafia, Governor Sule said his administration was making frantic efforts towards exploiting the solid minerals potentials of Nasarawa State. 

According to the governor, “even though Nasarawa State is blessed as one of the richest states in the country because of the solid minerals deposits, the state is yet to actualise these potentials.”

Sule told the Solid Minerals Development Fund MD that his administration has started making efforts towards harnessing the solid minerals potentials of the state. He, however, said the state was looking at the oil sector at the moment, but his biggest interest in Nasarawa was in the areas of the solid minerals.

But, the governor nevertheless decried the low funding in the solid minerals sector, as well as the artisanal level and lack of commercialisation of the solid minerals sector.

For Gov Sule, the only way Nasarawa State and indeed Nigeria could benefit from its potentials in solid minerals, was to move further from artisanal to commercial mining, which explains why limestone is a money spinner. He pointed out that on assumption of office, he discovered that Nasarawa State produces a lot of marble but that the marble was being taken outside the state in its raw form. 

In order to reverse the trend of taking raw marbles outside Nasarawa State, Sule’s administration approached a Chinese firm and two years later, the firm established a complete Marble Value Chain factory in Akwanga Local Government Area of the state.

“I am proud to tell you that between 25 to 30 percent of the entire marble in the Nigerian market is coming from there, from Nasarawa State. We are no longer taking the raw marble out because we are doing the entire polishing and cementing here. My dream is to see that we don’t have anything less than 50 to 60 per cent of the entire marble in the country,” he said. 

The governor called for a wholistic turn around of the mining industry, calling for the full commercialization of gold mining activities especially in Zamfara, and Uke in Nasarawa State, stressing that the major problem of miners is capital.

“The marble I am telling you is close to my hometown Gudi. But if you go to Toto Local Government Area, there is enormous amount of marble there also. Unfortunately, they are still taking that one out. We are hoping that they have can set up another factory there, because it is a different quality of marble,” he maintained. 

Be that as it may, perhaps the major preoccupation of Sule’s administration is to ensure that Nasarawa State develops her marble completely with the Value Chain before taking the finished product to the market, likewise for all the other mineral deposits such as zinc, lead, cobalt, etc.