By Emma Ujah, Abuja Bureau Chief

The revelation by the Managing Director of the Bank of Industry, Mr. Rasheed Olaoluwa,   that his organization gave loan totaling N24.6 billion to the solid minerals sector has unsettled  miners.  They are claiming that the said loan did not get to them.   In this interview, the President of the Progressive Miners Empowerment Association of Nigeria, Mr. Sunny Ekozin, challenges the BoI boss to tell Nigerians those who benefited from the N24.6 billion facility.   According to him, if N24.6 billion had been given to  miners in the last six years, the impact would have been there for all to see.

Mr. Sunny Ekozin

Excerpts:

To what extent has the N 24.6 billion given to  the solid minerals sector by the Bank of Industry impacted on the operations of miners?

That claim by the BoI Managing Director is unimaginable.  This has been a sector that several operators have been agitating for funding and getting little or no attention. Therefore, hearing the news that N24.6 billion was given as loan to the sector by the Bank of Industry, personally as a leader in the sector, I commend the effort of the bank.

That means that you and your colleagues got about N24 billion from BoI?

I think this is the area where there seems to be some kind of lacuna.   Most of the time we see people that hold public offices using words in ways you don’t understand.     You don’t say you have given N 24.6 billion for solid mineral development without the operators in the sector seeing it.   Who benefited from the N24. 6 billion? The BoI MD will need to tell the public who got the loans. You don’t give money to a manufacturing company which uses solid mineral as source of raw material acquisition and procurement for manufacturing processes and say you have given the money to solid minerals.   We demand a breakdown of those BoI has given this money to.   . Who and who have benefited from this loan? Who are the miners who are involved in exploration? Who are involved in beneficiation? Who are involved in actual mining operations that have benefited from this money?

To what extent have you conducted due diligence amongst your colleagues to be sure that this money didn’t get to some of them?

There is a lot of apprehension across the country. The day that pronouncement was made by the chief executive of the Bank of Industry that N24.6 billion was given as loan to solid minerals, the belief among miners is that their leaders and those who are privileged to interact with those in government have been benefiting all along and they are living in squalor and looking for money to develop their mines.

So as leaders we said we are responsible to them, we need to make it clear to the nation that there is no true miner that  benefited from this money and I challenge the MD of the Bank of Industry to publish the names of those miners who he has given this money to, so that we can take them seriously.   Otherwise, we demand, as operators within the sector who have been suffering all along before the government of President Buhari came in, that Mr Olaoluwa should publicly apologise to Nigerian miners.

I do know that aside the Progressive Miners Empowerment Association of Nigeria which you represent, there is the Miners Association of Nigeria, and other associations in the sector. Don’t you think that it is possible that the BOI could have been funding members of other groups in the industry without you knowing?

There are other associations but when it comes to who the real miners are, we know ourselves. You don’t recognise someone who stays in one-room apartment in Abuja and calls himself a miner. I challenge most of them who parade themselves under the name and titles of miners to show   where they undertake their mining operations? Most of these people have no mining outfits anywhere in the country. I am referring to anybody outside the Progressive Miners Association of Nigeria. We speak authoritatively because we know ourselves. Most of these people who say they are leaders of  associations of miners don’t have mining outfits.

Is it not possible that even amongst those who have any form of operations whatsoever, there could be those who have benefitted from the BoI loan?

Well, it is possible, but I can tell you that there is no serious miner who is involved in mining in this country that will not have relationship with the Progressive Miners Association of Nigeria. The reason is because they know who the actual operators are, who the sincere operators are, who the true voices are.

What do you expect the Federal Government to do aside your challenge to the BOI to publish the names of the beneficiaries of the N24. 6 billion loan facility?

Like we have been agitating, we are happy and very hopeful based on the activities of the president.   In his inaugural speech, it was clearly captured that solid mineral is going to be one of the sectors that he is going to develop and subsequently in different foray we have being telling him the need for this government to better the economy using solid minerals.

To that extent, we are asking him to read within the lines of all these emergency advocates who, all of a sudden, because of the body language of president, are now coming up from nowhere to say this is what we have done. Where have these people been since 2009 when we went to the BoI in particular? Where have they been? What advocacy have they done in terms of solid mineral development in the country? How many of the conferences and seminars and so on have they organised to sensitize the operators within the industry and say ‘look we have got this money for you and this is the only way you can access this money?

All of a sudden they are now coming out to say they have been helping the solid minerals.   I can tell you, in all of these, I can smell some kind of panic amongst several persons who want to secure their positions by trying to give an impression to the president that they have been working to develop this sector until now. So the president should read ibetween the lines because the federal emergency advocate is still yet to come up and we need to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Of course you know that you could possibly ask the BOI to indicate the impact of the  loan that they have given to the sector

As a matter of fact, I wrote immediately to Mr. Olaoluwa.   I don’t want a situation where it will seem as if one is reporting them at the first instance to the presidency that is why I deliberately didn’t copy the presidency. This came last week and of course it is something you send electronically, something you send by courier it is obvious that by last week that those documents would have been delivered.

What did you actually require from them?

I specifically asked of them, we received your pronouncement of the loan disbursement to this sector with joy and excitement but please give us the breakdown of the beneficiaries of this loan because there is a lot of unsettlement and apprehension amongst the operators particularly skilled operators, the indigenous operators in the country. People are really apprehensive because their believe is that 24.6 billion given to a sector, there should have been a significant impact in the sector.   But judging from what the briefing the Federal Ministry of Solid Minerals gave to the president recently, the president was reported to have said that it was the most demoralizing briefing he had received.

I am convinced that if that amount of money got to Nigerian miners, they would have possibly been able to chase out the illegal foreign miners that have been taking advantage of the nation’s solid minerals confusion.   If the ministry are cash strap and are not able to carry out their mandate as specified by the constitution you can see that we have crises within the sector. There is no way that operators within the mining sector would be thriving and the ministry will not be in the know.

You can see why we demand very urgently an explanation from the Bank of Industry as far as this 24.6 billion is concerned. It can’t be swept under the carpet because we are talking about a huge amount of money in this sector. The sector has never gotten that kind of fund in block at anytime and for any banker to make a pronouncement that they have given such money to the sector they should be held accountable for an explanation to the nation.