Governor Aminu Bello Masari of Katsina State has attributed the persistent spate of insecurity bedeviling most parts of the country to the failure to fully exploit the solid mineral resources with which the nation is abundantly blessed.
The Governor stated this when he paid a courtesy visit to the Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Architect Olamilekan Adegbite in Abuja, yesterday.
A statement yesterday by Abdu Labaran, Director General on Media, said Governor Masari also asserted that the agitations for resource control and restructuring would be out of fashion when the nation’s other resources, such as solid minerals, are fully exploited and harnessed.
Governor Masari said that many youth have found a calling in criminality because of the failure to develop other sectors of the economy to keep them fully engaged in viable undertakings.
According to the Katsina State Governor, every state in the nation was sufficiently endowed with one mineral resource or the other, which if fully utilised, there would be sufficient engagement for the youth to render criminal activities unnecessary.
Similarly, he expressed the belief that “agitation for resource development and restructuring will all away go away with the development of the various mineral resources each state is endowed with”.
While soliciting for the cooperation of the Mines and Steel Development Ministry in assisting Katsina to harness its huge deposit of various solid minerals, the governor told the minister that his administration had provided all the necessary ground to make Katsina an investor friendly state.
In his response, the minister, Architect Olamilekan, reminded state governments that mineral resources, wherever they may be found in the country were vested on the Federal Government to exploit on behalf of the Nigerian people, adding that it is wrong of any state to claim ownership of mineral resources found within its territorial jurisdiction .
He also cautioned state governments against enacting legislation vis-a-vis the mining of mineral resources, in addition to the ones enacted by the Federal Government, saying that there must be unified legislation across board from the federal government down to the local government.
Architect Olamilekan also charged state Governors to provide the enabling environment fir investors to find the ease and confidence to do business in their state, even as he implored investors to always carry the host community along in whatever business they conduct.
