Total dependence on petroleum taught Nigeria a bitter lesson last year as prices crashed, dealing a devastating effect on the economy. This lent credence to the necessity of diversifying the nation’s economy, a step which studies have since recommended as the simple solution to the nation’s imminent collapse.

The mining sector, according to experts, remains the plausible rescue option for the economy in the medium term because the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development has realised that if the sector is put on course, it could contribute about 20 per cent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

But the development of the sector can never come by happenstance; therefore, in collaboration with the World Bank; especially the Sustainable Management of Mineral Resources Project (SMMRP),the ministry has started laying the foundation for a significant growth in the sector. Already, the $120million loan secured from the bank has been spent on the establishment of the Nigerian Institute of Mining and Geosciences (NIMG), Jos, which is ready to admit students into post- graduate programmes by early next year. The objective of the institute is to raise the indigenous manpower that will drive the industry towards the expected target, said the Provost, Prof Idowu Odeyemi. It is expected that with the institute on course, the nation would no longer import manpower in the sector.

Besides, the Task Team Leader of the World Bank, Mr. Andrews Craig, who inspected the projects in Kaduna and Jos on November 12 and 13, having examined the on-going rehabilitation of the Nigerian Geological Survey Agency (NGSA), said that the NGSA will enhance the science that will enable the Nigerian governments and investors to locate mineral deposits. His words: "This provides the science that allows the government and the investors to locate mineral deposits.

"When they locate them, they can create jobs, create rural development impacts, create spin-off impacts on vendors and suppliers, generate tax revenue for the government. One of the principal objectives of the project is to provide an alternative for the oil revenue which has been so dominant in the economy.

"The principle development objective is to stimulate rural income, because these mines will be located in rural areas and the villagers will have jobs. Investors will come and invest and they will invest in school and dispensaries. We have seen the power of science to help do this in every country.

"This takes time, it does not give an immediate result, but it will happen in Nigeria . Here will be a world class centre."

Similarly, the SMMRP Coordinator, Mr. Linus Adie, said that on completion, the NGSA will have a multiplier effect on the nation’s economy as it will impact positively on virtually all the sectors such as defence, health and manufacturing. He noted that the agency is already trying to train 50 indigenous geologists, adding that the era of sending mineral sample abroad would become history as soon as the NGSA takes root firmly.

Yet, he said the initiative will save a lot of foreign exchange for Nigeria and the poor will certainly benefit from the project.

Said Adie: "We are building a standard laboratory.The foreign firms in Nigeria and our indigenous companies, whatever samples they collect here, they send them abroad for analysis. But this project is going to build a real standard laboratory and we will try to have ISO specification. We are trying 50 Nigerian geologists in this programme. Professors, some geologists that do not have jobs. They are in the field. The target is to have the capacity to map the whole country, to produce a methanogenic map of the country.

"Anybody sending a sample here is very critical, the analysis here will determine whether an investor will send a sample to put in his money or not. Unless he has confidence in the laboratory, we will end up sending our samples abroad. It will save the country a lot of foreign exchange. It will boost exploration and the development of the sector. In this project, there is nothing we do that does not touch directly. Anything has a bearing.

"All our works should touch people but should be world class. The defence academy we analyse their bullets, their metals. The police will do forensic analysis.

"The NDLEA, all the cocaine, we analyse samples for them. We even train them, that is aside what we do for the generality of the oil industry. We have already engaged somebody to come and teach Nigerians on gemstone cutting for three months.

"He is from Canada. While you are scouting for big mining companies, when they come, one of the things they look out for is their relationship with small scale miners. We have to teach our people how to marry the two."

Already the aero survey has been completed and the sector is now embarking on the geo-chemical mapping of the country still in the bid for driving the nation with mining.

To get some legal backing for the industry, the Minister has presented three bills, one for the establishment of the NIMG, Mining Cadastre Bill and the Nigeria Metallurgical Institute, Onitsa.

Presently, the nation’s mining industry is characterised by informal mining which Nigeria has modernised to Artisanal and Small Scale Miners (ASM). The ASM has already had a fair share of the World Bank loan as the Minister, Mrs. Deziani Alison Madueke has earmarked $10m as grant from the World Bank loan to small scale miners to procure their equipment, boost production and reduce poverty, especially in the rural areas where poverty and mining activities are dominant.

Besides, the minister has approved 31 applications for fresh grants. Among the 31, 28 applications are for community development while four are for small scale mining. There seem to be a ray of hope for this class of people whom Adie said could raise their income by 200 per cent in the long run.

Irrigwe Cooperative Society Women in Rukuba, Jos, has acknowledged that with the little boost, their sales and production volume have increased. Prior to this year, nobody regulator had the courage to review the mining titles even as it was identified that most of the titles were fake.

The former minister, Chief Sarafa Tunji Isola had suspended the titles in 2007 to weed out touts from the sector. He said "Nigerian mining titles are being hawked in the streets of China ."

But on October 27, 2009, the present minister, Mrs. Madueke only issued certificates for revalidated mining titles to 489 successful applicants and declared 832 null and void.

But the revalidation committee evaluated 2330 mineral titles out of which 1,569 were titles that had already been issued while 761 had been processed but not issued before the suspension became effective in 2007.

"At the close of the time for the submission of documents, 737 operators responded, which represented approximately 47 per cent of total title holders," Diezani said. She gave the figures as 489 successfully revalidated; 29 were provisionally revalidated (subject to submission of dated consent letters; 49 titles which were under assignment will be subjected to further processing while 832 were unsuccessful "and were therefore not revalidated."

According to her, "The above information clearly indicates that many titles were held by unqualified companies and speculative individuals. The process has therefore hopefully cleaned the sector of speculators and allowed only genuine investors with the necessary competence to operate."

The World Bank Team Leader’s visit was indeed an assessment of how far the projects have gone. This is so because, the loan has generated some controversies that tore the Nigeria miners apart.

Whereas those that lost from the interplay refused to see anything good about the utilisation of the fund, the lucky beneficiaries from the ASM grant remain grateful to the SMMRP that has liberated them from the manual labour. However, Craig, the umpire said the Nigerian project performance is exemplary. According to him, it is a model amongst World Bank projects in Africa .

"We have seen the work we have done in Kaduna yesterday (Thusday); the rehabilitation of the Geological Survey. We have seen today (Friday) in Jos the work on the mines inspection and our new facilities the Mines Ministry provide in Jos. We have seen a very exciting project, which the Nigeria Institute of Mining and Geosciences we have been in the project for the last four year and I have seen a lot of progress and we are going to make it more progressive as we go forward."

On the ASM, Craig said: "We have gone to see the women cooperative that was crushing gravels this morning and the grant was quite recent and it will be too early to for us to have positive results. But as the staff explained to me it is not just the money that is the benefit it causes increase in productivity, increase in their own income, people have to transport the material, people have to buy food in the site, all this is significant.

"We know we don’t have a full result but we have to be encouraged by what we have seen so far." From the foregoing therefore, Nigeria will remain the architect of its own fortune as far as the hope for industrialisation is concerned.

There is virtually nothing that the nation lacks to actualise its dream except the resolve to take the necessary actions and continue to shun corruption in the implementation of the projects which will lift Nigeria from poverty and eventually consolidate its gain in the world by 2020.