President Buhari’s committee on mining legal framework a welcome development – Zamfara Governor

By IBRAHIM KANOMA, Gusau

The Governor of Zamfara State, North West Nigeria, Hon. Mohammed Bello Matawalle Maradun, has described as a welcome delelopment the setting up of a 14-member national taskforce committee on mining legal framework draft, which will guide mining activities across the country.

In a statement by his Director General, Media, Public Enlightenment and Communications, Mr. Yusuf Idris Gusau, on Friday, the governor was quoted as saying, “the development, which is going to be most beneficial to Zamfara, its good people and government, will be a pacesetter in the right direction at finding lasting solution to the activities of armed banditry, kidnapping and other heinous crimes being perpetrated in the state.”

According to the governor, he had made several calls “for practical and workable measures to be taken on mining activities in the state in particular as it is blessed with vast untapped natural endowments as well as in other parts of the country, in order to have control and guiding rules and regulations.

“This is as against the crude ways many of the locals are put at life threatening risks with zero or very little benefits coming to them while big companies and their owners, foreign and national, who are not indigenes of the state, syphon these resources with no direct or indirect benefit to the state or its people.”

Muhammad noted with pleasure the inclusion of the representation of the state on the committee as a critical stakeholder and assured the federal government that the experienced contributions to be made by the state will strongly be advantageous to both the miners and the federal government in guiding mining activities in all parts of the nation.

The committee, with the chairmanship in the office of the National Security Adviser, Babagana Monguno has express mandate to immediately screen ten (10) indigenous companies to mine in the state during the inauguration by the state’s Commissioner of Environment, Mines and Solid Mineral Resources, Dr. Nura Gusau.

The terms of reference of the committee include development of a framework for vetting of prospective miners that will undergo mining activities in Zamfara and other states in Nigeria; conducting background checks and selection of prospective companies forwarded by the Ministry of Mines and Solid Mineral Development for mining in Zamfara and other states in Nigeria and conducting any other task in relation to the assignment given.

The NSA pledged to support the committee to carryout the assignment as expected noting that some of the attendant security challenges which necessitated the federal government to ban illegal mining in Zamfara could be reduced to enable the state regain its socio-economic development.