Activities of artisanal miners encouraging banditry in Niger – Bago

Activities of artisanal miners encouraging banditry in Niger – Bago
By Aideloje Ojo, Minna
Niger state Governor, Mohammed Umaru Bago, has blamed artisanal miners for the rising banditry activities in the state.
The governor stated this while receiving in audience Senate Committee on Solid Minerals investigating recent mining sites collapse in the state.
According to him, the development has resulted in loss of many lives and property across in the affected areas.
“The activities of artisanal miners are of great concern to us as government. This is because it has encouraged banditry activities in parts of our state,” he said.
While stressing the urgent need for the removal of mining from the exclusive list to the concurrent list in the constitution, the governor said his administration is fine tuning an executive bill to sanitise mining activities in the state, adding that the bill would be sent to the state House of Assembly soon.
” When passed into law, the bill will spell out the procedures to follow in terms of mining operations in Niger State thereby getting rid of all forms of irregularities in the sector. In this regard, government has held series of meetings with stakeholders in the mining industry on the proposed bill, which also seeks to address post-mining effect among others”, he explained.
Bago said that his administration is currently in talk with the federal government on the issue of license for aggregation to help in checking the exploitation of young illegal miners in the state
Speaking earlier, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Solid Minerals, Senator Ekong Sampson explained that the committee was mandated to look into the remote and immediate causes of the mining collapse, following a motion moved by the Senator representing Niger East Senatorial District, Sen. Mohammed Sani Musa on the floor of the Senate.
He said, ” the issue of mining safety in Nigeria and that the mining sector remains critical to the nation. Therefore, the Senate Committee on Solid Minerals is determined to put in place measures that would prevent reoccurrence of the such unfortunate incidents “.