Monarchs Conniving With Illegal Miners, EFCC Reveals

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) said that some traditional rulers are conniving with illegal miners in parts of the country despite the negative impacts of mining on their communities and the coun­try generally.

The EFCC Chairman, Mr. Ola Olukoyede, said this on Tuesday in Abuja at the two-day first International Anti-Corruption and Climate Change Conference organised by the Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA Resource Centre) in collaboration with Hawkmoth and supported by the MacArthur Foundation.

It was themed, ‘National Stakeholders’ Engagement for Accountability and Transpar­ency in Addressing Climate Change, Energy Transition, and Oil Licensing for Sustainable De­velopment’.

When we are talking about environmental degradation, what is going on now with the illegal mining, in another five years it is going to be much, worse than the degradation that oil and gas exploration has caused.

“So let us begin to have that at the back of our mind. It (illegal mining) is a major problem that we are grappling with. You need to see the pictures of some of the environmental damage that ille­gal mining is causing; not even from foreigners alone, but par­ticularly by our own indigenous people, in their environment. In some cases, supported by some traditional rulers,” Olukoyede said.

He also said that the severe environmental damage in the Niger Delta, including oil spills and pollution, was largely driven by corruption, not just natural causes.

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He said, “The Niger Delta to­day is riddled with cases of oil spills, pollution and damage to the ecosystem. This cannot be blamed on natural occurrences alone. Corruption is at the root of climatic disruptions.”

Olukoyede said that transpar­ency and accountability were essential in addressing these en­vironmental and economic crises, and urged for the strict adherence to laws and regulations to combat corruption in the oil industry.

The Chairman of HEDA Re­source Centre, Mr. Olanrewaju Suraju, noted the importance of learning from past mistakes as Nigeria shifts from oil and gas to new energy resources like lithi­um and solar energy.

He warned against repeating the exploitation and mismanage­ment that plagued the oil sector, urging the government to focus on sustainable development that benefits all regions of the country.

Suraju also called for estab­lishing accountability mecha­nisms to ensure a responsible transition to new energy sources.

“So we cannot afford to trans­fer our horrible experiences with oil and gas to the same thing as the new energy sources. Nigeria is one of the countries with a substantial deposit of some of the new resources and materials that are to be used for the new en­ergy migration and transfer.

“We are saying that the gov­ernment’s focus should not just be exploiting those natural re­sources for power generation or resource generation for the government and federation, but ultimately for the development of the people.

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