Plans of the Federal Government to make Nigeria a mining destination could become reality with more success stories from the sector, this was according to the Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Olamilekan Adegbite.
He said this on Monday while hosting delegates of Aurelia Mining Company Limited, United Kingdom, led by its Director, Julian Hammond, in Abuja
Adegbite disclosed plans to establish a gold production base in Illesha that was stalled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
He said, “The whole essence of this is to promote the industry in Nigeria. We have a success case in Nigeria. The more success stories we have the better for us because others will become convinced.
“In the next couple of weeks, we will start gold production from Illesha but was a little bit delayed because of COVID-19. The more the merrier, and this success story will attract more investors then Nigeria will become a mining destination as we want it to be. I hope to have more of this success story and we expect success from this group.
“We all know about Segilola gold is also in Nigeria, is actually a Canadian company into exploration and they are quoted on the Toronto Exchange, and recently in the last three weeks quoted in the London Exchange as well, and that is a success story in Nigeria.
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“But the whole essence is to go out there and to convince more investors to come to Nigeria and do mining. The government is spending so much money, and we have a project called the National Integrated Mineral Exploration Project, NIMEP, the Nigerian Geological Survey Agency, NGSA, is doing exploration, Nigeria’s gold is one of them, and apart from data and the was the same data I met as Honourable Minister in 2019, and we took out before the pandemic started in 2020. I was in South Africa, London, Toronto, and of course with all these we are still able to convince investors; look Nigeria is a place to come to.
“Nigeria was known for solid minerals before the discovery of oil and gas, because of the ease of drilling oil and gas and that made it easier for the country to develop the oil and gas industry, which is why we shifted focus away from mining without realizing that we need to do both.
“We have the minerals and this is the time to develop them and as an encouragement, this is the right thing to do to come into Nigeria to put up this project.”
