Governor of Nasarawa State Abdullahi Sule has said the country’s mining sector requires urgent reforms to allow for the exploitation of the tremendous potentials in the solid minerals sector of the economy.
Governor Sule gave the hint while welcoming guests at the townhall meeting organised by the Tinubu/Shettima campaign organisation in Lafia, the state capital.
Abdullahi Sule said the solid minerals sector has great potential for the economy of Nigeria but requires urgent reforms to make the sector viable.
He said that it is also significant to talk about security because, in Nasarawa State and Nigeria as a whole especially when it comes to the issues of exploration of solid minerals that abound in the state and country, security has become a major challenge.
“Nasarawa State is known as the Home of Solid Minerals, has tremendous potential in solid minerals but it requires urgent reforms in order to minimize illegal mining and to improve on insecurity at the three tiers of government,” he said.
He described the sector as lucrative but needed urgent reforms so as to minimise illegal mining and to improve on security in the country. “It’s important to speak about security whenever solid minerals development is mentioned because in Nigeria, they work in pari passu,” he said.
He said Nasarawa State is blessed with the largest deposits of several viable minerals including cooking coal, barite, lead, zinc and lithium, as well as playing host to most of the active minerals’ development companies.
