In a move to sanitise the solid minerals sector and protect investors from fraudsters, the federal government is embarking on the clean-up exercise of the sector by revoking mining licenses.
The exercise is primarily aimed at making room for genuine investors and ensuring compliance with the extant law guiding the sector.
Director-General of the Mining Cadastre Office (MCO), Obadiah Nkom, stated this during a live conversation on X (formerly Twitter), themed “A deep dive into the Mining Cadastre Office: Driving transparency and order in Nigeria’s solid minerals
The revocation order was approved by Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dr. Dele Alake will involve expired, speculative, and inactive titles.
Nkom disclosed that MCO has identified and revoked 4,709 licenses, including 1,400 expired titles, 2,338 refused applications, and 971 notifications of grant where applicants failed to pay.
Dismissing rumor that the exercise was punitive, the DG noted that revocation order was a deliberate sanitisation process to weed out speculators who hoard licenses without adding value to the economy.
The DG also raised alarm over the activities of impostors parading as staff or agents of the agency, warning that any offender apprehended would be prosecuted by government.
He said his agency had made formal complaints to the Department of State Services and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to track and prosecute impersonators.
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