Lifting 100m Nigerians out of poverty by PMB on course, achievable- Musa Ilallah

By Musa Ilallah

SINCE coming to power as the duly elected President of Nigeria as the most populous country in Africa on May 29 2015, President Muhammadu Buhari has consciously, consistently and doggedly pursued his vision of dealing with the scourge of unemployment biting hard and threatening the survival of a good number of Nigerians. According to Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, more than 82 million Nigerians live on less than $1 a day.

From his pledge to diversify the Nigerian economy from its being mainly dependent on oil to become dependent on agriculture and solid minerals among other multi abundant resources, President Buhari has done everything humanly possible to create jobs, more jobs and many more jobs for our teeming unemployed Nigerians. This is towards achieving the government’s target of lifting 100 million people out of poverty in ten years time.

Other verifiable programs targetted at creating jobs and subsequently lifting people out of poverty include the Social Investment Programme, SIP;  nationwide infrastructural development of the country and the recent Special Public Works, SPW programme which is engaging 774,000 Nigerians to support the communities as part of the Federal government’s efforts to upgrade and maintain infrastructures among others.

Of greater significance and interest to this writer is the recent strategic attention the PMB administration is giving to the solid minerals sector of the country’s economy particularly the Gold mining program that is capable of improving the fortunes of government by way of boosting local revenue generation,  increasing employment opportunities and boosting our foreign earnings and reserves.

The PMB administration set out early enough to rejuvenate the gold mining sector as a very viable economic venture by coming up with the Presidential Artisanal Gold Mining Development Initiative, PAGMDI.

For the benefit of those who are seeing this acronym for the first time, PAGMDI is a comprehensive artisanal and small-scale gold mining development program of the federal government being driven by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN; some federal ministries;  some state governments and other stakeholders launched in 2019 to foster the formalization and integration of artisanal gold mining activities into Nigeria’s legal, economic, and institutional framework.

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PAGMDI has been designed to integrate social, environmental, health and safety, economic, commercial, and technical considerations, into its implementation and was designed as a broader strategy to address structural and institutional factors such as rural poverty, lack of alternative livelihoods, and difficulties in meeting legal and regulatory requirements that tend to push artisanal gold mining operators deeper into the informal economy.

According to the PAGMDI document viewed in Nigeria’s statehouse website, PAGMDI in addition to also improving the working condition of artisanal miners will significantly reduce the number of in-pit deaths that are seen on an annual basis.

It is not in doubt that illegal artisanal mining has fueled instability across gold mining regions with intelligence reports confirming a ‘nexus between illicit gold mining and a rise in banditry’.

For the first time ever, formalization driven by access to markets will give the artisanal gold miners a guaranteed pathway to legitimate business, growth and prosperity. The greater transparency that PAGMDI confers on the flow of financing in the sector will help diminish the incentives for criminality.

By using data from the United Nations, UN Comtrade, PAGMDI estimates that between 2012-2018, more than 97 tonnes of gold valued at over $3 billion was illegally smuggled out of Nigeria.

Furthermore, in addition to the economic sabotage, illegal artisanal mining has fueled instability, mercury and lead poisoning incidents across gold mining communities, particularly in Zamfara state.

While unregulated artisanal mining places a significant burden on our fragile health systems, records show that from 2010 to 2016, there were more than 7,000 incidents of lead poisoning, resulting in 700 deaths related to gold mining activities in Zamfara and Kebbi states alone.

These and several other issues made it imperative for President Buhari to approve PAGMDI in 2019 to address these issues and foster the integration of artisanal gold mining into the formal system of economic and social development of the communities.

This further led to Nigeria in June 2020 producing for the first time ever, artisanally-mined gold that has been processed and refined according to the London Bullion Market Association, LBMA,  standards required for the use of gold as a reserve instrument by the Central Bank of Nigeria.

With this development, CBN will be purchasing gold that has been mined, processed and refined under the Presidential Artisanal Gold Mining Development Initiative for use as part of Nigeria’s external reserves.

This milestone is the culmination of a 24-months of intense efforts between the Solid Minerals Development Fund, Kebbi and Osun States Government, Ministry of Mines and Steel Development, and the Ministry of Finance, Budget, and National Planning under a Steering Committee led by the Chief of Staff to the President, Professor Ibrahim Gambari.

PAGMDI as the catalyst for integration will provide access to markets for the artisanal miners through a National Gold Purchase Programme and the deployment of enhanced mining methods at artisanal and small-scale mining sites in addition to deploying safer and more efficient mining and processing technologies across artisanal mining locations across the country, starting with Kebbi and Osun States as the Pilot States with intervention in Kaduna, Zamfara and the Niger States to commence immediately after the Pilot programme.

Using a centralized offtake and supply system supported by a decentralized aggregation and production network, PAGMDI will buy all the gold produced by artisanal and small-scale miners and aggregated by licensed buying centres and aggregators for supply to the Central Bank of Nigeria.

PAGMDI will result in the creation of over 500,000 new mining and formalized jobs, leading to poverty alleviation for more than 1 million households.

Through the biometric registration of thousands of artisanal miners nationwide,  about 20,000 miners have already been registered in Kebbi and Osun States while agreements have been reached with Thermo Fisher Scientific and Mettler Toledo, both leading producers of gold testing and weight equipment to equip up to 50 buying centres across the country.

President Muhammadu while officially presenting the locally mined gold bars at a ceremony at the Presidential Villa recently which was facilitated by the Presidential Artisanal Gold Mining Development Initiative, PAGMDI said: “improved gold mining operations in the country will generate no fewer than 250,000 jobs and over $500m annually in royalties and taxes to the Federal Government.”

President Buhari also reaffirmed his administration’s commitment to establish gold refineries in Nigeria noting that this laudable initiative would support efforts at creation of jobs for Nigerians, diversifying the revenue base, and improving foreign exchange reserves.

Reiterating the determination of the Federal Government to combat illegal mining activities, the President expressed concern that Nigeria lost close to $3b in 8 years due to illegal smuggling of gold.

In the words of President Buhari, ‘these gold assets which will be purchased  by the CBN in Naira, will not only help to bolster our international reserves but also provide a hedge against inflation and other economic volatilities associated with foreign currencies that are held in our reserves.’

President Buhari noted that in addition to the potential revenue gains that will occur from mining operations, efforts are being made to enable the setting up of gold refineries in Nigeria.

In obvious consideration of environmental degradation of the mining sites side by side with their implications on communities and the people,  President Buhari pledged Government’s readiness to pay close attention to safety and environmental measures to protect workers and communities.

‘‘It has also led to a 40 percent drop in crude oil prices. In Nigeria, the drop in crude oil prices has had a significant impact on government revenue, as well as on our foreign exchange earnings.

‘‘In responding to this challenge, it is therefore paramount that we strengthen our efforts at implementing policies and programmes that will enable a greater diversification of the Nigerian economy.

Presently, Nigeria’s current estimated gold reserves are put at over 200m ounces, most of which have not been exploited thus making it imperative to develop sustainable programmes that will catalyse increased investment in the extraction and refining of gold sourced from mines in Nigeria.

One can confidently say without any fear of contradiction that President Buhari has once more demonstrated his desire to move more Nigerians out of poverty.

Nigerians must, therefore, support these genuine efforts to make Nigeria great again through PAGMDI. Courtesy of the PMB administration’s sincerity in diversifying the country’s economy, Nigeria will soon be a world leader in gold mining and export.

Musa Ilallah writes from Abuja