The Federal Ministry of Mines and Steel Development, FMMSD, is finalising plans to spend N20 billion on exploration, the minister in charge, Kayode Fayemi has said.

The minister disclosed this in Abuja on Thursday at the project presentation of the Mineral Sector Support for Economic Diversification Project, MinDiver, in partnership with the World Bank.

He said the expenditure would lead to further information being generated and provided in the area of exploration.

Mr. Fayemi also said that the ministry had finally retrieved the aerial survey, commissioned years ago, which was not paid for by the government.

He said it had now been paid for and the data had been retrieved for the use of mining investors.

While discussing the MinDiver project, the minister commended the World Bank for using the roadmap as a guide for formulating the project as it usually is not the case in most scenarios with external support.

“Very often, what we are told is that donor support is largely driven by what the donor wants, not necessarily what the recipient is in desperate need of, but I can assure you that working with the world bank team on this project has shown that this is not always the case,” he said.

“The World Bank listened to us and planned what eventually became this project largely from the roadmap and of course they guided and shared their extensive experience with us in other countries.

“Everything that is contained in the programme document for this sector initiative is largely driven by us and we cannot therefore hold the World Bank responsible for the success or the failure of this project. We must hold ourselves responsible for the outcome.”

Mr. Fayemi said the purpose of the project is to build a world class minerals’ and mining ecosystem designed to serve a targeted domestic as well as export market for mineral ores.

“We plan to achieve this by focusing on Nigeria’s minerals, mining and related processing industry over a three-phased period.

“The first phase is to rebuild market confidence in our minerals and mining sector and win back all our domestic users of industrial minerals that are currently imported.

“During this phase, Nigeria will also seek to expand the use of our energy minerals like coal and this phase will take the next two to three years.

“The second phase focuses on expanding our domestic ore and mineral access processing industry. For too long, what we have in terms of endowment is often taken out raw and our conclusion is that they would be more beneficial both to our private sector operators and to us in the government for our mineral ores to be processed locally with value added before being taken out, if they must be taken out at all.

“In some cases the market here is large enough to absorb what we produce but in some cases we may need to encourage export of this endowment.

“The third phase for the roadmap seeks to return Nigeria to the global ore and mineral market at a market competitive price and we expect that this would also coincide with a commodity upshot because the mineral resource industry is also an industry slightly like the oil industry. It is the same extractive sector and prices go up and down.

“While we are waiting for full recovery of that market, we believe that we can use the period to prepare for our global communication. This is in line with our broader national strategy as pertained the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan, ERGP.”

Mr. Fayemi acknowledged the World Bank support as timely and appropriate.

The minister also mentioned a meeting he had with his counterpart in Niger Republic on Monday as one of the efforts to grow the sector through partnerships within the African continent.

He said they agreed and finalised plans on the exploration of minerals binding both Nigeria and Niger Republic, particularly Uranium, limestone and zinc.

greatgod2012:
Another way to get their bank account fatter. After all,, 2019 is fast approaching, they need large amount of money for campaign!

Blue3k:


I'm not sure you read or thought this out. The world bank has measures in place to keep them accountable with grant. This mindiver program been talked about since 2016 anyway.

Blue3k:
Interesting to see Nigeria partnering with Niger Republic on mineral exploration. The press should query for more details regarding deal. I'm guessing the uranium search is for future nuclear plants since its not listed under priority minerals. It seems the relations between Niger Republic and nigeria been growing under buhari a little bit.

The phases of plan make sense till phase 3. What exactly is he expecting future commodity price increase on. Is he also expecting future rise in oil for same reason. Other than that the plans ok. I notice they're still planning energy diversification with coal.



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Blue3k:
Interesting to see Nigeria partnering with Niger Republic on mineral exploration. The press should query for more details regarding deal. I'm guessing the uranium search is for future nuclear plants since its not listed under priority minerals. It seems the relations between Niger Republic and nigeria been growing under buhari a little bit.

The phases of plan make sense till phase 3. What exactly is he expecting future commodity price increase on. Is he also expecting future rise in oil for same reason. Other than that the plans ok. I notice they're still planning energy diversification with coal.

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bigpicture001:
..Uranum?.. did I read someone type uranium?..dt would mk the both counties even more target by the US, UN and also terrorists groups..yes,its expensive nd could massively increase our revenue..but has nigeria read about what happens to the radioactive waste from uraniun usage?... the law says, u discover,exploit nd export,and after being bought and used by your buyers,the waste from it is returned to the primary source for decomposition, which takes some times, 5milion years to disintegrate,yet very dangerous to come in contact with...they shld reconsider please ooo

IMASTEX:
Government of the future as usual. . .will, to, shall, set to, etc

teamsynergy:
I see areva coming in on this..what has uranium extraction done for small Niger sef.... corruption is gonna make uranium extraction especially dangerous

greatgod2012:
Another way to get their bank account fatter. After all,, 2019 is fast approaching, they need large amount of money for campaign!