By Bitto Bryan.
In light of the alarm raised by the National Economic Council over the large-scale illegal mining and theft of Nigeria’s solid minerals, including gold as disclosed to State House Correspondents after the 153rd NEC meeting, more Nigerians are demanding for accountability and transparency in the National Gold Purchase Program.
Recall on 23 June 2024, Dr. Dele Alake, Nigeria’s Minister of Solid Minerals Development, presented a gold bar to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to mark the inaugural commercial transaction of the country’s new National Gold Purchase Program (NGPP), a program designed to strengthen the naira by using local currency to by gold from small-scale miners, which is then refined and sold to the Central Bank Of Nigeria (CBN) with an initial transaction valued to have added over $5million to Nigeria’s foreign reserves and injected about $6 billion into the rural economy.
Beyond the symbolic presentation of an aggregated 70 kilograms of gold that met the London Bullion Market Association’s “Good Delivery Standard”, In October 2025, President Tinubu announced an additional N1 trillion investment in the solid minerals sector for exploration and infrastructure.
However, cautious optimism now trails these landmark achievements following NEC’s growing concern about the unregulated exploitation of Nigeria’s Mineral wealth and associated loss of national income.
Speaking during an interview on ADBN TV’s flagship program, ‘Morning Express’, Mr. Ken Ugbechie (Publisher, Political Economist,NG) harped on the need to enforce legislative and regulatory oversight, formalize artisanal mining and tackle illegal mining associated with terrorism financing.
Mr. Ugbechie called for stronger collaboration between the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit(NFIU) and interpol to prosecute the crime of illegal mining , citing the conviction and sentencing of Ansaru Commander, Mahmud Usman to 15 years in prison.
Moreso, Dr. Dele Alake has hailed the verdict as a major victory in the war against illegal mining. As a probe panel comprising of the Committee on Crude Oil Theft and Pipeline Vandalisation, chaired by the Imo state Governor, Senator Hope Uzodimma had her mandate extended to also investigate illegal mining operations across the country.
Senator Uzodimma announced shortly after that the expanded inter-ministerial committee will now focus on both oil and solid minerals, coordinating with other government agencies to close gaps in monitoring, licensing and revenue collection.
