There has not been any form of discussions on any minerals in Nigerians. I don’t see them coming out with a resolution that they will no longer mine for gold. I have not seen a resolution discussion in Africa when they say they will no longer mine for diamonds, it is not on the table for discussion. If you go to a mine site you will stop and ask yourself, is there no challenge to the environment. In the UK for example, what they are using for their underground today because they understand that they don’t have anything else. When I visited the mine site in Uk I saw a great level of massive exploration and in that kind of atmosphere a lot of gas is also released to the air, but nobody asks what will happen to those sites. 

When they finish and those places they dug up to a thousand feet, what will happen after then, are they going to close them back of course not. And now the discussion is about hydrocarbons, and I recalled in those times when hydrocarbons were discovered in places like the U.K and Scotland they had loads of reserves about some years back and they utilized those resources.  Beyond the U.K having discovered this hydrocarbon it was not the Uk that was exploiting this hydrocarbon it was the Americans until the Uk people were able to fit into the hydrocarbon sector. If you go to Poland today they don’t have gas anymore and despite discussions we have in Angola. At the administrational level whatever that was agreed during this conference needs to be elevated to the presidential level.

They need to look at this and make a decision on how we are going to exploit and explore natural resources for the benefit of Africans and it was just yesterday we met on the strategy on how to deal with their next door neighbor. Because of this work, they told us the ones they needed us to hear while the other ones they didn’t want us to hear they didn’t tell us as part of their confidential discussion.  We need to elevate it at the presidential level and ECOWAS, he concludes.

Engr Simbi Kesiye Wabote is the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian  Content Development and Monitorin Board {NCDMB}.