The Niger State Government has established a taskforce to address illegal mining activities across the state. Acting Governor Yakubu Garba inaugurated the taskforce in Minna on Monday, also announcing a conditional lifting of the ban on illegal mining.
The taskforce has been assigned various responsibilities, including monitoring and reporting illegal mining sites, identifying child labor in mining operations, ensuring compliance with executive orders on illegal mining, and profiling registered mining companies. The taskforce will also report security challenges in mining communities and ensure that companies are paying the appropriate revenue and royalties to the state.
Governor Garba noted that the state has 578 registered mining companies and 302 mining cooperative societies, but only 261 have been profiled by the state’s Ministry of Mineral Resources. Proper profiling, he emphasized, could attract both local and foreign investment, benefiting the state’s economy through comprehensive mineral resource data.
The governor also linked the frequent attacks on communities not only to the farmer-herder conflicts but also to the mineral wealth in those areas, which may be attracting insecurity.
The taskforce will be chaired by Alhaji Abubakar Usman, Secretary to the State Government, with Alhaji Sabon Yahaya, Commissioner for Mineral Resources, serving as co-chair. Other members include the Commissioner for Homeland Security, the Commissioner of Police, the Director of DSS, the Commandant of NSCDC, 25 council chairmen, secretaries from eight emirates, and representatives from the state assembly.
In response, Alhaji Abubakar Usman pledged that the taskforce would diligently fulfill its mandate to regulate and control illegal mining activities in Niger State.