Nigeria’s Mining Agency Raked N14.59bn In Five Years

Samuel Mobolaji

Nigeria Mining Cadastre has generated N14.59 billion as revenue between 2018 and 2022, the Director-General of the agency, Obadiah Nkom, on Thursday has said.

Speaking at the 63rd session of the ministerial briefing, organised by the presidential communications team, Nkom, explained that in 2018, 2019 and 2020, the agency generated N1.55 billion, N2.38 billion and N2.57 billion, respectively.

However, between 2021 and 2022, its revenue fell from N4.3 billion to N3.79 billion.

He noted that the revenue drop was due to changes in its internal operating system which temporarily affected revenue inflow.

According to him, 100 per cent of the agency’s revenues are sent to the treasury single account of the federal government.

“The bulk of the revenue comes from application, processing and annual service fees; constituting 50 per cent of the annual revenue generated from the federal ministry of mines and steel development,” he said.

He explained that the agency has revoked over 3,000 titles that were not used, noting that the agency makes sure that only the rightful people are given licenses.

“If you have not paid, we put it in the newspaper and then, we gazette it and we give you 30 days to ensure that you pay so that the serious ones will come and pay and those that are not serious, we will revoke it. We have revoked titles,” the director-general said.

“There are over 6,000 licenses. For now, if you are seeing 9,000 on the website, I told you that we have over 3,000 licences that are revoked.

“We have just gazetted and we are going to implement that. When you look at that implementation and that 3,000 licences that are removed, we end up having 6,000.”

Mr Nkom said there are restrictions and conditionalities for the issuance of coal mining licences in the country.

He added that the Mining Cadastre Office does not just issue licences but looks into the future, issues of sustainability, maximising value and strategically ensuring that Nigeria is properly managing her mineral wealth to achieve maximum economic value and diversification.