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Professor Lukman Adekilekun Jimoda is the Special Adviser to Governor Ademola Adeleke on Mining and Mineral Maters, in this interview; He speaks with Blessing Adegbite on the state of things in the mining sector, challenges, opportunities for economic growth, steps Governor Ademola Adeleke is taking to support and develop the mining sector and plans to sustain the legacies of Governor Ademola Adeleke lives beyond this administration.
Q: What was the state of things in the mining sector when this administration started?
I am Professor Lukman Adekilekun Jimoda, the Special Adviser to Governor Ademola Adeleke on mining and mineral matters. When this administration started, Governor Ademola Adeleke set up a committee to reposition the mining sector and the recommendation of the committee had really helped us a lot. When I was appointed as a Special Adviser, it was so easy for me because I was a member of that committee, and what we are trying to do is to ensure that we put all those recommendation into place. We met the mining sector in disarray, in the sense that the accumulated service charges that must be paid for all the mining licenses were disregarded and also area of important need of upgrading form exploration lice to mining lice, were not given attention by the last administration. There is need for this office to visit all our licenses; we have six licenses in Osun, we have five in Kogi, we have one in Zamfara, we have two in Ebonyi, we have one in Niger and one in Kaduna, all those licenses were abandoned in the sense that there is need for us to revisit them, this was the state of things we met.
What are the challenges facing the mining sector in Osun State?
The last administration did excavation almost everywhere without taking care of environmental degradation, there was also no proper planning for mineral exploration, there are some things that have to be put in place before you allow miners to be mining and these are areas, this office has done a lot of restructuring.
What are the opportunities for growth in the mining sector in Osun State?
Mining is not like buying and selling, you have to invest and with time the investment will be bringing money, Investment in the area of allowing joint venture participation, the model in most cases is that you allow people to come and you now fix together at an agreement and I can assure you that this government is ready to do it well, which this government is doing very well unlike before and I believe once we do it well, a lot of opportunities will be coming in terms of a bogus internally generated revenue (IGR), which we are already witnessing gradually. This office is now having revenue generation from quarry operation, revenue from laterite, we are also trying to generate revenue from ticking on a daily basis for artisanal miners, we now have IGR from registration of miners and very soon we will be having IGR from mining using excavators and mining using cord drilling.
Q: What steps is Governor Ademola Adeleke taking to support and develop the mining sector in Osun State?
Governor Ademola Adeleke has paid over one hundred million naira of the accumulated service charges, it’s unfortunate that the last administration were just doing mining and disregarding what is bringing money, when you have a license and you are getting money from it, you have to make sure you do all the needful, we have paid all the accumulated service charges, we are not owing anything, its available online for fact check and kudos to our own Governor for that. Apart from that in management you have to plan, you do fore-casting, this office has done a lot and I am doing all this together with my executive secretary, we now have exploration lice (EL), we are trying to upgrade exploration leases to mining leases at the end of the operation we will be having forty-two mining leases and two exploration leases, the implication is that we need more investors, we now have enough licenses to accommodate investors.
Q: What are the benefits of mining for the people of Osun State?
Mining is a process that generates IGR, we have three main methods of doing mining; we have the traditional mining, we have the air recruitment artisanal mining method and we have mining using excavators and cord drilling. There is no way the three methods is not going to bring money, we are running a strategy that will bring more IGR and we have increase our signature bonus from twenty million naira to thirty million naira for mining using excavators, mining using excavator is working between four to ten metres, mining using cord drilling entails working between several metres downward, we have increased the signature bonus for cord drilling from one hundred million naira to two hundred and fifty million naira, investors have started coming but we don’t want to rush, we are screening them, there are something things they must bring before we allow them, this are the due diligence we are taking presently.
Q: What are you doing to curb the menace of illegal mining and its effect on the environment?
Once you have your own personal license, you are not an illegal miner, it is the responsibility of the Federal government to give licenses, but once they work here, the State government wants to know them, we want to romance them, we want to tell them the does and don’t in our State. Illegal miners are those people doing excavation without having license and without having romance with the host community, because the mining act says that you mine with the community development agreement, but once you have your license, you have an interaction with your host community, then you can do your mining legally but illegal miners are those person that don’t exit, they just want to do mining, this government will not tolerate anything like that and that is why we have been able to get all the list of miners in the State, we have their names, we now know their cadastral unit and areas they occupy, with this we can easily manage and avoid illegal mining, we are managing and studying them and the state government is giving us enough logistics to be able to do our work effectively.
Q: Can you give us update on the ongoing effort by the Osun state government to clean up Osun River?
I am Professor of chemical engineering and I specialized in environmental engineering, as a chemical engineer we are more verse in the area of mineral processing and mining in a safe environment. I have a lot of relevant publication in the area of water pollution and waste management, that is why I have the responsibilities of showing that you don’t just mine, if you are a cord drilling miner you must mine by showing prerequisite to your mining is having an environmental impact as a state.
We want to know the condition of the environment before you get there and the condition of the environment after your operation or progressively as you are doing your operation, so that we can monitor what is happening to our environment and this office is on top of that, we don’t tolerate anything that will affect the water of the Ijesa people, there is what we call environmental management plan (ENP), they must do ENP, at the level of ENP I will be there, my executive secretary will be there, Commissioner for environment will be there, PS environment will be there, Commissioner for water resources and PS water resources will be there, we will look at it together, we will ask questions, we will scrutinizes what they are bringing, so that an agreed ENP will now be used for them to go to the field and for mining with excavator you do a comprehensive environmental impact assessment.
We are on top of it and we don’t want to tolerate mining that will affect the environment and our people’s health.
Q: What’s your plan in ensuring that the steps taken under this administration lives beyond the administration?
We met Segilola, Segilola is an independent miner, mining within the state, we added that the Government have a shareholding, I was given an assignment to trace the shareholding of Segilola, I am happy to tell you that this office has been able to do the nitty-gritty of that assignment and we have been able to claim a shareholding of Segilola, the actual percentage will be communicated to the Governor, it is a great achievement and the implication is that a lot of IGR will be coming to the state.
We are looking the at the sector in the area that we want more licenses, we also need to manage the existing one to bring more investors, which we are working on that, as a state we are encouraging more investors to come, recently the Governor directed me to interact with investors from United Kingdom and United State of America, and we have assured them that Osun state is one hundred percent okay for investment.
We are looking at this office in such a way that will attract enough investors, we are looking at a state that we will ensure our miners carry out their mining in a safe environment, zero tolerance for air and water pollution and we are looking at a state in such a way that we should be able to interact with people that has enough thinker capacities, most of our licenses don’t have data, very soon we will have a group that will continually be having the data collection, so that we can have information, when we have a license and you have data, it becomes very good market for investors, Data acquisition this office will work on that and by implication it is going to attract more investors.
I also seize this opportunity to thank the entire citizenry of Osun for their support for the People’s Governor, Senator Ademola Adeleke, I want to assure us that it is not more business as usual, we now have an office of mining and mineral matters that is looking at Osun state having enough IGR, a lot of money is now coming in unlike before and we are also trying to plan in such a way that it will attract more investors and they are already coming, but we are taking our time to screen them and the final agreement will be done by the Ministry of Justice, our own is to ensure that they comply with the direction we are going. I want to assure us that very soon we will have enough IGR for the state.
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