The Federal Government of Nigeria has charged the 2,220 new security personnel to smoke out illegal miners wherever they may be found across the country.
These personnel were organized under a new security architecture to tackle the menace of illegal mining in Nigeria.
The Minister of Solid Mineral Development, Dele Alake, gave the charge at the ministry’s headquarters on Thursday in Abuja.
Dr. Alake had received the specially trained officers who were drafted from the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps code-named “Mining Marshal Corps.”
He enjoined stem theft and all nefarious activities around the nation’s mineral resources so that Nigeria would reap maximum benefits from its God-given resources.
“Insecurity has bedeviled the mineral sector of this economy and it has combined with other variables to short-change revenue generation.
“So amongst others, the issue of combating insecurity in this sector is very crucial if we are going to record any success.
“Without the security of the operating environment in the mineral sector, you can’t even talk of increasing the revenue yield.
“We hope and believe that the minerals will become the revenue saver of the Nigerian economy and we are pursuing the goal of making the mineral sector contribute more than 50 percent to the gross domestic product and that is our long-term objective.
“Today’s event of launching and formally handing over the civil defense structure to engage illegal miners and sanitize our mining environment was also part of what we conceived at the inter-ministerial committee.
“I am very happy to let the public know that we did say at the onset that we are going to tackle insecurity and the first batch of the security apparatus that we are using in this sector is what we are launching here today.
“The civil defense structure already existed before and we thought that amongst other logistic support that is necessary for the takeoff of the new security architecture for this sector.
“And then in terms of the numbers, we are starting initially with 60 personnel per command.
“But that is just for the takeoff phase. I have also mentioned that other security agencies will come on board very soon. So the number is going to keep increasing as the need arises.
“But because we needed to fast track the execution of this policy that’s why this civil defense structure had to be used to execute the mines marshals.”
