2,220 Mining Marshals raised to go after saboteurs of mineral resources

The Federal Government has told the 2,220 new Mining Marshals to stop illegal activities around Nigeria’s mineral resources to enable the country to benefit from its God-given resources.

The specially trained officers drafted from the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps code-named “Mining Marshal Corps” were specifically told by the Minister of Solid Mineral Development, Dele Alake, on Thursday in Abuja to smoke out illegal miners and all those who flout the nation’s mining laws.

Alake spoke when he received the specially trained officers at the ministry’s headquarters.

This latest development came two months after President Bola Tinubu established an inter-ministerial committee led by the Solid Minerals minister to deliberate on modalities in achieving its mandate of producing a blueprint for securing the country’s natural resources including solid minerals, forests, and marine economy.

With a command structure spread across the 36 states and the FCT, the mining marshals will have their command and control domiciled in the Ministry of Solid Minerals Development, with 60 operatives first deployed in each state of the federation and the FCT.

Alake said the official reception of the marshals will ensure security at mining sites, eliminate illegality, and sanitise mining environments to counter illegal mining and smuggling of solid minerals from Nigeria. He described this as a major success in his seven-point agenda.

He added that the mining marshals devised to be an inter-agency security outfit will incorporate special operatives from other security agencies like the Nigeria Police, Nigerian Army, among others.

Alake said, “Insecurity has bedevilled the mineral sector of this economy and it has combined with other variables to short-change revenue generation. So among 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 per cent to the gross domestic product and that is our long-term objective.

“And then in terms of the numbers, we are starting initially with 60 personnel per command. But that is just for the take-off 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 defence structure had to be used to execute the mines marshals.”

In his remarks, NSCDC Commandant-General, Abubakar Audi, stated that the new mining marshals would give verve to the corps’ mandate of protecting national assets and infrastructure in which solid minerals are a major component.

“We have a list of illegal miners across the nation, and we will go after them. Their days are now numbered, “Audi said.

The new Mines Marshal is led by a Commander, Chief Superintendent of Corps, CSC Attah John Onoja.