This article is about my recent experience in the field, issues I discovered, and personal possible solutions to the problems. If this problem is not looked into, the resultant effect could be more than what we can handle as a sector.
Among the tiers of Government, the Federal Government of Nigeria owns minerals, and they are saddled with the responsibility of Licensing, allocation, monitoring, and evaluation operations, and operators through various agencies. It's pretty obvious that the laid structure is not perfect, and needs improvement. This is the main reason for the current political swing of the country the honorable minister came up with a 7-point agenda to be specific in terms of having a long-lasting footprint in the mineral sector of the nation. This 7-point agenda has been described as a solution that can also kick the industry forward to stand tall among it's peers all over the world.
My recent experience was not in any way pleasant. I had a client that gave me a project to get an exploratory done on a prospecting mineral. To follow the demand of the law, I tried to find out if that place is free before we do further exploration to be sure of the prospecting mineral. To my amazement, the place was not free, as a company had placed licensed on it. Approaching the land owner to tell them about the development, I discovered that the land owners have no idea of the position of the land as regards mineral title. They further stated that no one sought their consent. Since I needed to give my client what he needed, I and my team looked for other areas far from that place of operation to see if we could get similar material. Luckily, we did. To find out the position of the event, we discovered the place has been licensed. To our surprise, the same company that place licensed on the First, did placed licensed on the second one too. I became curious to find out what had happened. I discovered we have moved several kilometers away from the first place, I was surprised when I discovered we were still on the same license. I inquired to know the number of CUs covered, I was told 950 CUs. An entire 7 communities had been captured, and no operation has in any way started.
The question I asked myself are:
1. Who signed the consent letter for this company?
2. What probable mineral of interest were they looking for
3. For how long have they acquired these licenses without operation
4. Could they be paying renewal on this license.
5. What was their view on amassing these sites
6. Are they financially strong to work on these sites.
If you are surprised, I think I was also surprised too. If MCO (Mines Cadastre Office) is responsible for cases like this, how come they granted just one company these Cadastre Units? Are they paying royalties? What were the factors that are responsible for renewal? Do they know that some of the landowners know nothing about the consent, which had consequently prevented genuine development in their community?
The federal government’s readiness to tackle conflicts and community clashes rests in this view. Several community clashes have silently happened that have, at one time or the other caused problems because of not seeking the consent of land owners.
I think the MCO has a lot of work to do here. The system of allocating Cadastre should be reviewed. Proper institutions that should look into community, land allocation, and mining operations should be instituted. There should be proper evaluation, monitoring, and surveillance of these operations to know if the license should be retrieved.
This is my case!
Thanks
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