All illegal miners across the nation have been instructed by the Federal Government to vacate their operational sites immediately or face serious consequences.
Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Mr. Dele Alake, disclosed this during the graduation ceremony and distribution of starter packs to 30 graduating trainees from Batch 3 of the Ministry’s ‘Gemstone and Jewellery Master Training and Empowerment’ program, which falls under the World Bank-assisted Mineral Support for Economic Diversification (MinDiver) project.
Alake stressed that the skill acquisition program is a vital part of President Bola Tinubu’s ‘Renewed Hope’ agenda. He emphasised that the graduation event signifies the actualisation of Tinubu’s promise, articulated during his presidential campaign, to generate a large number of employment opportunities for the youth.
Furthermore, he lauded Min-Diver for its outstanding initiatives in improving the well-being of Nigerians. These efforts involve intensive training conducted by dedicated, experienced, and committed experts to transfer knowledge and skills to young Nigerians, who will subsequently train others and boost job opportunities in all 774 Local Government Areas across the 36 States and the Federal Capital Territory, FCT.
He also admitted that the program had previously successfully graduated 40 Master Jewellers who completed their training between 2021 and 2022. The first group of 70 Master Jewellers will constitute a faculty tasked with training future jewellers in all 774 local governments throughout Nigeria.
However, the Minister appealed to state governments to join forces with the Ministry by funding the training of at least 10 young individuals from each local government to acquire these highly profitable skills.
He reassured them that the faculty would be available to any state committed to empowering its youth, sharing their technical knowledge, and demonstrating the utilisation of solid minerals for beautifying the community.
He said: ‘Looking at the result of this seemingly small but extremely significant gesture of graduating students that have gone through the crucibles of learning the art of skill acquisition, it rebuilds hope for our country Nigeria. I commend your efforts, initiatives, focus, and sense of responsibility. You have gone through the process of skill acquisition in this very critical sector.’
‘Nigeria with its large population has appetite for jewelry and it is imperative to create a local jewelry industry to meet substantially local demands, for quality jewelry products, to increase import substitution, create jobs and boost the export value of Nigeria’s gemstones and jewelry.’
‘Nigeria is abundantly blessed with variety of mineral resources, among the minerals identified are varieties of precious and semi-precious stones. Some of the most popular Nigeria gemstones include sapphire, aquamarine, beryl, emerald, tourmaline, ruby, garnet, amethyst , and zircon, which are located across the length and breadth of Nigeria and are used to adorn designs but are sadly illegally exported.’
‘My Ministry is currently putting in place strategies, tactics and logistics, and we are working very assiduously and closely with the security agencies with the view of designing a very solid and enduring formula for combating illegal mining and illegal exportation of all our critical minerals in this country. In due course the details would be unfolded to the public. But I am just using this opportunity to send a strong warning to those currently engaged in illegal mining in Nigeria that henceforth it would be no longer be business as usual.’
‘We must harness all our critical resources for the benefits of our nation. Today, it is a known fact all over the world that hydrocarbons are on the downward trend in the global international trade meaning all that are contingent to our development, GDP substantially is no longer what it used to be and is on the decline. So what do we do? We have to shift attention to non-oil exports, and believe me, Nigeria is sitting on one of the most enormous amount of mineral resources in the world. There is virtually no state that does not have one mineral resources or the other that is sought after in the global international market’.
He also lamented that Nigerians have neglected these resources that would have greatly reform the economy.
According to him, ‘Necessarily and compulsorily attention is now focused on the non-oi exports, particularly, solid minerals and that is why the Ministry is now the focal point of generating substantial revenue and making contribution to the GDP of our country. In fact, I say with all emphasis and all sense of responsibility that solid Minerals is the next petroleum in Nigeria. We are not going to be exporting, exploring, excavating and carting away our solid minerals abroad. We are going to be adding local value and we are going to attract foreign investors into this industry and sector.’
‘However, one of the salient conditions is that the foreign investors will not just come and excavate our resources and minerals away, they must also do backward integration in terms of establishing the industries and factories that would add local value to our natural resources before being taken out and that would create more jobs, resources and revenue’.