Nigeria’s Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dr. Oladele Alake, on Friday, September 29, opined that Nigeria solid minerals is endowed with abundance as a resurrection tool to revamp the nation’s economy.

He affirmed that the present administration is shifting attention from hydro-carbon.

Alake made this known in Abuja, while receiving the Association of Licensed Small-Scale Miners, led by its President, Dr. Olugbenga Ajala, on a courtesy visit to the Ministry’s Headquarters.

The minister in a statement by its Head of Press, Mr. Alaba Balogun, said that the Ministry has initiated several deliberate policies and programmes which are geared towards achieving set objectives for economic prosperity, outlined in the roadmap.

Meanwhile, he said that the establishment of the Solid Minerals Corporation and promotion of public-private ventures is crucial to these objectives. Adding that, “It will ensure sustainability and increase revenue accruable to the government, with a significant contribution to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

“The Ministry is committed to establishing a multi-agency task force that will put a stop to the activities of illegal miners and their collaborators.

“The government will come down firmly on these unscrupulous foreign operators sponsoring banditry to perpetrate illegal mining: let me use this medium to appeal through you to tell those sponsors to desist or face the full wrath of the law.”

The Minister restated that the government has given illegal miners 30-days grace, stressing, it is not a punitive measure but a way to formalize and make them legitimate to continue in their trade.