Mining: Sectoral sanitation for performance amidst economic diversification quest
Economic matters have remained of top concern to Nigerians recently. The subject has assumed a central place in the State-of-the-Nation discourse. The strains in the profile of the economy have borne symbiotic forces colliding to bring the economy to its heel. With the strains have come the call for diversification of the economy from its monocultural oil dependent status. However, concentration on exploiting such other minerals for development of the mining sector can not be said to be attracting the full blown measures needed to lay formative structures for virility driving the sector unto productivity to serve as a stronghold for the economy to spread it’s resting formation upon.
Among several deficient forces working against the possibilities of a virile mining sector is the phenomenon of illegal mining which over time have constituted a deforming estate discomfiting profitability to the nation’s economy for commonwealth. Dimensions of social decadence in broad terms have continue to form augmenting clutch which has been segmenting with the norms of the Nigerian society. As several dimensions of social ills continue to grow into pronounced phenomena, the definitions of what is right or what is otherwise in the societal formations of Nigeria is becoming nebulous. Hence, the strength of the definitions of the distinguishing lines between rights and wrongs are becoming closer such that dichotomies between these sensibilities are assuming symmetrical dimensions. Following these social deformities, ethos of rights are gradually been reduced to idealistic positions that are matter of choice in relative terms.
The expansive rooting of these dynamics have been manifesting not only in the architecture of social formations, but across economic, political, cultural and even religious formations among other institutions of the society. Since the defects have assumed psychological dimensions which has shaped orientating perception informing social conduct as the impetus driving behaviour in present time, the exhibition of these conducts has continued to find expression across ramifications of societal formations in the Country.
The economy as an indispensable pillar of societal formations has not been spared from the decadence of defective orientations which have over time been waxing stronger to drive conducts and behaviour. In economic terms, these defective orientations have been creating strains clogging to affect business transaction within the architecture of the economy. Since, decadence has been having its manifestations spreading with expansive tentacles, sharp practices in the Country have constitute strings of disturbances, pulling the economy backwards. These sharp practices are apparently observable across sectors of the economy. The mining sector has for years been suffering from the claws of sharp practices. The phenomenon of illegal mining is one subject which has been robbing the Country of resources which are lost to illegal practices. While operations have been launched to hunt after perpetrators of the mischievous escapades, it is glaring that the achievements of such operation are incommensurate to sanitising the sector from the entanglements of the illegal escapades which have entangled the sector.
Although, the Federal Government had recently declared its resolve to grow the sector through regulations, it remains indisputable that the efforts deployed so far have not given reflection to the desideratum. It is essential that the Federal Government should move beyond mere lip service to adopting effective policies backed with the necessary political will and drive to ensure sharp practices in the mining sector are tackled to zero level. Reports have shown how some influential Nigerians are, with impunity, conniving with foreigners to illegally defraud the nation of its resources.
Given the strains of the economy and the demands for redressing measures to pull same out of the mire of discomfiture, the onus lies on the Federal Government which presently holds the preserve of exploiting mineral resources in the Country to scale up efforts towards coordinating frameworks to develop strategic structures conforming to the need to reconfigure the working parameters of the mining as a sector with potentials upon which the quest of diversifying the economy can be fostered. To foster a virile economy demands the simultaneous working of several sectors in a systemic link of effective and efficient productivity. The possibilities in the mining sector remains enormous, it behooves the Federal Government to coordinate the drive towards the economic realities accruable from the sector.
