The Minister of Solid Minerals, Dele Alake, has warned governors towards banning mining actions inside their states.
Alake insisted that no governor possesses the rightful authority to intrude with mining operations in any state within the nation.
The minister made these remarks throughout a pre-event press convention in Abuja for the eighth version of the annual Nigerian Mining Week 2023 scheduled from the sixteenth to 18th of October.
According him, “for a State to wake up and say it is regulating mining activities is like a state waking up to ban oil exploration which is downright illegal”.
Alake emphasised that mining is solely inside the Federal Government’s area as stipulated by the Constitution, noting that no governor is constitutionally empowered to enact legal guidelines, laws, or oversee operations regarding stable minerals assets.
He stated: “The states’ ban on mining activities across the country is a point that is really sore. And it’s a constitutional matter.
“I want to use this opportunity to get to the entire Nigerian public that no state, and I repeat, no state, has the authority to interfere in mining operations. No state has the authority and it is not it’s a no-brainer. It’s a constitutional matter.
“Mining belongs exclusively in the purview of the Federal Government, according to the Constitution. It is in the exclusive legislative list. It is not in the residual. It is not in the concurrent. It’s in the exclusive legislative list. Every item on the exclusive legislative list belongs to the Federal Government.”
