Mining: Call state governors to order, Association pleads

The Miners Association of Nigeria (MAN) has advised the Federal Government to call some state governors to order, over excessive fees levelled on miners.

Alhaji Sani Shehu, the President of the association, gave the advice on Sunday in Abuja.

Shehu said that some state governments had formed the habit of tasking miners to pay royalty, fees and obstructing mining activities, among others.

According to him, the Ebonyi State government is charging excessively on every mineral mined and taken out of the state.

“The Ebonyi state government is charging N800, 000 per trailer load of 30 tonnes of Lead mineral taken out from the state to another.

”The money is not for the trailer carrying the mineral but charges on the mineral that is being taken out of the state, miners hardly make N200,000 per trailer load of lead,” he said.

He also complained that Lagos State Government had been making operations of sand dredgers dredging the lagoon unbearable.

“The Lagos state government wants to take full control of their activities and render them jobless,” he said.

The state government in 2017 issued a ‘stop work order’ to the sand dredgers for different reasons and one of them was to have full control of their activities.

However, with the intervention of the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development, the order was lifted.

He also said that the Kebbi State Government had stopped one of its members from operating, adding that the association had commenced investigation to that effect.