Nigerian Extractives industry transparency Initiative (NEITI) has revealed that mineral resources like gold, copper, silver, palladium and other precious metals can turn around the country’s economy.
The 37-year-old NEITI Board Member representing Southwest Nigeria, Professor Damilola Olawuyi made this known exclusively to Tribune Online via a Zoom meeting held, on Wednesday evening.
Professor Olawuyi noted that economic significance is inevitable with the production of these precious metals.
He, therefore, stressed the need for government to focus on these precious metals when allocating budget for data analysis even as it embarked upon branding and credible data.
The Deputy Vice-Chancellor explained that credible data on the precious metals would place a premium on the country and attract foreign investment without stress.
“Why don’t we divert our resources to precious metals such as Gold, silver, copper, and palladium. Any country that can produce those four can be economically significant overnight.
“We have these in Nigeria and we have these in the southwest. So, if we are allocating budget for data analysis, why don’t we focus on these four precious metals, brand them and then we have credible data on them.
“If we have credible data on these four metals, we don’t even need to do much because people would come from all over the place.
“But, in a situation where we are over-stretching our efforts and we are not getting any tangible result, it is because we have not yet organised ourselves the way we should,” he said.
Meanwhile, Professor Damilola urged that the mining sector be re-organised and aggressively market its capabilities.
“We must, first of all, organise the sector and aggressively market our capabilities. The reason why the oil and gas sector had been attractive over the last years is that we have been able to organise the sector.”
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