Dele Alake’s Portfolio: The Surprises, the Expectations

The announcement of Mr. Dele Alake as Minister-designate for the Ministry of Solid Minerals was perhaps the biggest surprise as the Presidency allocated portfolios to ministerial nominees on Wednesday. In this report, Raheem Akingbolu captures the mood and the challenges ahead for the new minister.

Among the ministerial nominees, one man, who most Nigerians, including senators of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, thought they had ratified his portfolio before formal announcement was made, is Dele Alake. Everybody was ready to hedge a bet that he would head the Ministry of Information and Strategy. At the National Assembly chambers where Alake was grilled like most of the nominees, all the senators fell for it as they restricted their questions to issues related to communication and information management.

Of course, the nominee’s background gave him away. Aside from his recent exploits during and after the campaign that brought President Bola Tinubu to power where he served as Director of Strategic Communication, Henry Dele Alake has always been known and respected as a Nigerian journalist, activist and technocrat. He was a former commissioner for Information and Strategy in Lagos State between 1999–2007 under the same Tinubu as Governor.  Then as soon as Tinubu was sworn in, he was appointed Special Adviser to the President on Special Duties, Communications and Strategy. A former Editor of the rested Concord newspaper and a major player in the media team of both Chief MKO Abiola’s 1993 Presidential Campaign and Ashiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s senatorial bid and eventual victory in 1991, Alake has both the gift of garb and proficiency in writing.

The unexpected

While the guess work and permutations on who get what continued, those who knew President Tinubu like the back of their palms as a visionary leader imbued with powerful foresight, had insisted he would pull some surprises. Then came the defining moment, Dele Alake was announced as the Minister of Solid Minerals. It caught everybody unaware. Then the tone of the argument changed, with many people concluding that Alake must have either fallen out with Asiwaju Tinubu or edged out by some imaginary more powerful people in the presidency.

But according to a presidential source, the decision to send the former Editor to the Solid Minerals ministry was a deliberate act from President Tinubu as well as the willingness of Alake to deploy his skill in other areas.

“It is expected that many would be surprised given the experience of Mr. Alake in the media and information management. Mr. President was equally reluctant to leave information management to someone else, but as a visionary leader who knows his men very well, he needs a trusted, serious-minded and result oriented personalities in some key ministriesa as part of his desperate move to revamp the economy. That explains why he singled out Alake for the Ministry of Solid minerals. Like Asiwaju, I know Mr. Alake very well and I can tell you that the Ministry will soon become one of the highly revered ministries in Nigeria in terms of relevance to our country’s economy,” the soure said.

Potentials in the Solid minerals sector

For decades, experts and analysts have consistently clamoured for a well managed solid minerals sub-sector of the economy. Their argument is that its establishment will accelerate economic, social and political growth of Nigeria by provision of gainful employment and a rise in national income earnings far exceeding the petroleum sector. Many years later, has this been achieved? The answer is no, based on available data and indices.

Fast forward to 2015 when the Federal Government identified the solid mineral sector as one of the key sectors to drive the desired diversification of the Nigerian economy. To this end, many experts and organisations responded positively with various proposals to help the government achieve its aim in this regard. One of such proposals was a piece authored by PwC Nigeria titled “Developing the Solid minerals sector: Quick wins for the new government” which provided a summarized analysis of the sector at the time. PwC is the leading advisor to the mining industry globally and in Nigeria and must have taken the decision to express its willingness to support the Buhari administration on the journey.

Like other experts who have contributed to the conversation around solid minerals, Pwc had observed then that to achieve an accelerated development of the sector and position it to contribute to the economic diversification agenda of the government, several steps needed to be taken. Among these were the need for geo-science data gathering to further support the airborne geophysical survey already carried out, addressing the security challenges, establishment of Mineral Buying Centers and lapidaries, and the need to address the challenge around access to funding. The organization also advocated for the establishment of a policy on artisanal mining, a solid mineral development bank, and re-establishing the milestones of the roadmap for the development of the solid minerals and metals sector among others.

These thoughts resonated with the Federal Government leading to the launch of a new Mining roadmap in 2016 which aspired to “build a world class minerals and mining ecosystem designed to serve a targeted domestic and export market…” Ultimately, the endgame was to position the sector to contribute 3% to GDP by 2025

Eight years later, the sector has though recorded some achievements, especially in the area of creating structure for growth, but cannot be said to have met the required expectations. Notably, the Board of the Solid Minerals Development Fund (SMDF), tasked with funding key sector initiatives was reconstituted in 2017. The SMDF and the Bank of Industry (BoI) have since launched a N5Billion fund to provide single digit interest loans for mining projects. There have been efforts to improve the sector’s regulatory framework with enactment of new laws and establishment of the national council of mining and mineral resources development. Notably, The Nigerian Institute of Mining and Geo-sciences, Jos (Establishment) Act was assented to by the former President, Muhammadu Buahari in Nov 2018 for training of manpower for the sector and research. In addition, the Federal Government in 2018 presented a Roadmap for the “Development of Nigeria’s Industrial Minerals”, developed by the World Bank assisted Mineral Sector Support for Economic Diversification (MinDiver) Project. The National Gold development efforts saw the issuance of the first gold refining license in 2018. There was also a strategic focus in Bitumen and Steel to harness the full potential of these resources for economic development. Efforts to curb Illegal Mining have been ramped up by the provision of surveillance vehicles for the Mines Inspectors across the Country and increased inter-agency co-operation. This has led to some arrests of local and foreign illegal miners. There has also been support for revamping the operations of Mineral Buying Centers across the country. We have also seen increased State Governments participation in the sector following better collaboration between the Federal Government and the States in the development of the sector. The States have also increasingly received the 13% derivation for national solid minerals, providing incentive for developing the sector and monitoring revenue collection.

Challenges and expectations

As identified by many observers and analysts, several issues have continued to constitute a challenge to the sector. For example, Despite the reconstitution of the SMDF, the impact is yet to be felt in the industry. Though a N5 billion single digit interest funding between the SMDF and BoI was launched by the Federal Government in 2018, not many miners have been able to access it. On the other hand, commercial banks remain skeptical and continue to assess the industry as high risk.

Under Tinubu/Alake, Nigerians are looking forward to critical steps that would help their country in achieving mining shared prosperity for Nigerians. It’s also expected that the Solid Minerals Development Fund (SMDF) be adequately supported and strengthened to enable it to perform its role.

For easy funding, experts have proposed that included in the SMDF/Bank of Industry (BoI) fund should be an element that supports data gathering and a structure that assists the miners achieve bankable status. They urge the government that criteria to become eligible for these needs be clear, unambiguous, and achievable, considering the real status of miners in Nigeria. Another area recommended in this regard is the need for a private sector funding policy initiative that will be activated almost immediately.

This should be targeted at encouraging commercial banks and other private sector fund providers to invest in the mining sector while being deliberate in managing their risks especially from exploration. To protect the banks, it has also been recommended that necessary incentives should be made available for commercial banks to embed this within their corporate strategy and achieve set levels of implementation.

Above all, many pundits have called on Federal Governments that efforts to resolve the Country’s security challenges need to include initiatives specific to mining and within zones with high mining activities.