The Senate has raised the alarm that some unnamed retired military generals were behind the numerous illegal mining activities across the country.
Speaking yesterday in Abuja, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Solid Minerals Development, Senator Sampson Ekong, PDP, Akwa-Ibom South, submitted his report before the Senate Committee on Appropriation.
Chairman of the Senate Committee on Interior, Senator Adams Oshiomhole, APC, Edo North, said that the country’s efforts at diversifying its economy will not be achieved if President Bola Tinubu’s administration fails to address what he described as embarrassing cases of illegal mining in the country.
Oshiomhole, who is a member of Senator Olamilekan Adeola, APC, Ogun West led Committee on Appropriations Committee warned that no amount of funds appropriated to the solid miniarals sub-sector would achieve any meaningful results of the issue of illegal miners were not effectively tackled.
The former Edo State Governor, who urged the federal government to start dealing with illegal miners like the way it was currently attacking those involved in illegal oil bunkering in the Niger Delta region, said that the country would have increased its current 0.05% to GDP to about 50% to GDP if the government had stopped the activities of the illegal miners.
Oshiomhole said, “Whereas the federal government is ruthless with people who are doing illegal oil bunkering by deploying the Joint Military Task Force to deal with them, when it comes to illegal mining of solid minerals, the federal government changes. It’s like using different standards, and I am very angry about that.
“If we have to fight this menace, we need to deploy the Army even to kill anyone who is involved in illegal pumping of oil. We should also deploy JTFs, comprising the Army, Police, and Air Force, against them.
“The ongoing illegal mining across the country is being carried out by retired generals, and we know them.
“Yes, we know them. Nobody in Africa doesn’t know them. I wrote a letter to former president Muhammadu Buhari on the matter when he was in office.
“This is because a team that I sent to go and conduct the primary somewhere reported back to me about the challenge of conducting primary elections in Zamfara because of the illegal miners.
“The team told me that those illegal miner procure arms exactly the same way the military is doing in the South Sudan.
“They give them arms. They use choppers to come and cart away the gold, and they take them out of this country and make billions of U.S. dollars.
“Unfortunately, the federal government is not doing what it should be doing. I took this letter to the former president when I was the national chairman of the All Progressive Congress, and I said, Call the general to give you more briefing.
“In fact, what is happening or what is supposed to really happen in that part of the country was exactly what the general told me was going to happen.
“These guys have been weaponised by the illegal big men who deployed a secure territory. The weaponry was made to protect the Chinese and other foreigners, and that’s why they actually are going to carry out the mining.
“So, the retired military officers, army officers, are involved in it. The day we can’t tell the truth, this country cannot flourish. That is what is going on with the mining sub-sector. It is not that we don’t know where it is. We have a whole survey of where we can find them across the length and breadth of Nigeria.
“Even as we are talking now, they are still those illegal miners, and those guys are getting richer when they get poorer.
“Who can afford to buy the chopper, land in an illegal mining site, cart away gold, and immediately, they are on the way to the airport to take them out of the country? This is happening.
“My position is that we shouldn’t be lamenting. We should fix the problem. We should tell the executive, You must deploy exactly the same force that you deployed against illegal oil bunkering in the Niger Delta.
“That same force should be deployed to deal with criminals who have money. When I say criminal, it can be a retired general, it can be a retired permanent secretary, it can be a retired trade unionist, or a retired labour leader.”
At the end of Oshiomhole’s remarks, the committee agreed with his submissions and urged the various security agencies to take up the challenge because the shortest pathway for people in Nigeria is through diversification.
Meanwhile, Ekong has told the Appropriations Committee that his committee has recommended N539 billion as the capital budget for the solid minerals development ministry in the 2025 Appropriation Bill, adding that the executive proposed N9 billion as the capital vote for the ministry for this fiscal year, but that his panel believed that the amount was grossly inadequate to tap the available potential in the sub-sector.
According to him, even when the ministry had an insignificant allocation last year, it raked in a total of N37bn as revenue.
The chairman of the committee who disclosed that members had unanimously agreed to drastically increase the budget of the ministry said, “It was agreed by everyone in the joint committee that the appropriations be rejected and reviewed upwards as well.
“So we held a number of meetings with the Minister for Budget, and I think there were assurances that given the critical needs of the solid minerals, there would be an improvement if more money was channelled to it.
“This is given the fact that from the little vote the ministry had last year, they were able to ramp up revenue for the country to about $37 billion.
“When we met again with the Minister of Budget and other stakeholders, it was canvassed that the appropriations be reviewed to N539 billion for capital expenditure. This is even paltry compared to what other economies are injecting to drive the sector.”
Meanwhile, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on the Army, Senator Abdulaziz Yar’adua, APC, Katsina Central, has canvassed that the military and security institutions in the country should be removed from the envelope budgeting system.
Yar’Adua, who stated this when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Appropriations to present his committee’s report, said, “The Army is undergoing tremendous transformation from five to eight divisions today, in line with the Nigerian army order of 2023.
“In this regard, there is the establishment of three additional divisions.
“The implementation of the Nigerian army today has new commands and new units, which include the Nigerian army battle fitness centre and the Nigerian army cyber warfare command to ensure a secure cyberspace for the Nigerian army.
“We also have the Nigerian army special forces school and the special intelligence command.
“Other units and commands include the land forces simulation centre, Nigerian army aviation command, department of special services and programs, and we also have four special forces commands.
“We have the 401 Special Forces Brigade and the 402 forces brigade, among other units, commands, and formations.
“In the 2025 appropriation bill, the army was given a total of N1,455,967,711,579, of which the personnel involvement amounts to N1,143,341,418,537. While the overhead cost amounts to N74,459,682,018.
“The total capital appropriation for the 2025 envelope as given to the Nigerian army amounts to N238,166,611,015.
“Based on the submission of the Nigerian army, they required a total amount of N2,136,387,160,236. So there is a shortfall in overhead cost as well as the capital appropriation.
“The shortfall for the overhead cost amounts to N16,009,072,264. While the capital appropriation shortfall amounts to N664,410,412,401.”
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