Commandant General of Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, Abdullahi Mohammadu, chargers personnel of the Corps and various head of units in charge of protecting Mines and Steels to beef up security in various sites to stem the tide of illegal Miners by flushing them out of the business.

Mohammadu said government through the Minister of Mines and Steel Development Signed an MOU with the Corps as one of the foremost Agency in charge of the protection of Critical Infrastructure and National Assets and the solid mineral sector as one of the Critical Asset is not left out, therefore there is the need to justify the confidence repose on the Corps by Government in protecting the sector
especially now that Government is diversifying the economy from the oil sector.

He further stressed that Nigeria is highly endowed with abundant Solid Minerals found all over the Country.

According to Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiatives,NEITI, Nigeria has over 44 known minerals assets which include: precious stones, base metals, bulk minerals and rare earth metals.

The most promising ones being Gold, Iron ore, Barite, Bitumen, Lead, Zinc, Tin, Coal. It is pertinent to note at this period of dwindling economy that solid minerals hold the key to the economic diversification for sustainable development of the Country i.e. reducing dependency on oil and gas, job creation, foreign exchange earnings, domestic production and consumption and tax revenue.

Regrettably, not until recent times, Government has been paying lip service to its development or treating it as a theoretical exercise with no enthusiasm, the result of which is this pathetic state of mineral development in the Country.

In the words of the Commandant General of NSCDC, Mohammadu, the major players in the industry are informal miners which are artisan miners, medium scale operators and illegal miners which constitute the highest percentage.

He added that most of the minerals mined in Nigeria are exported by both the informal players and the few formal ones. He however worried about the activities of illegal miners in Mining Industry which has become a menace with its attendant loss of revenue from taxes, loss of royalties, uncontrollable risks that the citizens are exposed to as a result of environmental degradation among others.

He supported his claims with the report by one of the electronic media in the Country which informed that over 300 mining pits were dug in Ijesa Community in Osun State and other equally dangerous ones in Kogi State for the purpose of mining gold and limestone by artisanal miners.

These he said were just a few out of hundreds of such across the Country.

He however opined that in order to check the above challenges posed by illegal miners, it is necessary to establish genuine and functional security networks.

In realization of this, he said NSCDC whose core mandate it is to Protect Critical National Assets and Infrastructure as provided for by the NSCDC (Amended) ACT2007, and being the foremost security agency in collaboration with Federal Ministry of Mines and Steel Development, has taken the bull by the horn in formally establishing a department called Mines and Steel Department, headed by
Commandant Chike Ikpeamonwu since February 2016.