The Federal Government on Wednesday said it has discovered gold deposits along the Abuja-Nasarawa axis through the National Integrated Mineral Exploration Project (NIMEP) being carried out by the Federal Ministry of Mines and Steel Development (FMMSD).
This was revealed by the Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Olamilekan Adegbite, when the Governor of Nasarawa State, Abdullahi Sule, paid a visit to him in Abuja.
The Minister, in a statement issued by his media aide, Ayodeji Adeyemi, told the Nasarawa state governor that the mineral resources in the state will be developed.
He added that a repeat of the Zamfara experience (where bandits took over gold mining) will be avoided in the state.
Adegbite said, “Nasarawa State is the home of solid minerals in the country. We had an earlier discussion about the recent discovery of precious minerals in the Nasarawa, Abuja axis.
“As you probably might be aware, we have been talking about this for a while; there is a programme we call NIMEP executed by the ministry where the government has put about N15bn into exploration for minerals, one of which is gold.
“We have done this exploration across the country and we have discovered a very nice track of gold deposits especially between Abuja and Nasarawa where we share borders.”
The Minister added that the ministry is working with relevant security agencies to avert illegal gold mining snowballing in the state.
Speaking, the Nasarawa state governor said the state is prepared to work with the ministry to prevent illegal mining as his administration is concerned about the threat of illegal mining and its associated vices.
Sule added that an area called Ukai in the state experienced some form of illegal mining of gold in the past but it also attracted some respectable companies who were mining legally in the state.
