The Osun State Government said it did not sell any mining licence but was consolidating and expanding state assets in the sector.
The Special Adviser to Governor Ademola Adeleke on Mining and Mineral Matters, Lukuman Jimoda, in a statement on Wednesday, made this known in reaction to the allegations that the state government has sold some mining licences.
“Mr Governor did not sell a single cadastral unit in the asset inherited from the last government. He is fully working towards converting all eight joint ventures inherited from the Oyetola government,” the statement said.
A mining licence is an official document or certificate granted by the Nigeria Mining Cadastre Office (NMCO) that allows a company or individual to engage in mining activities such as extracting, processing and trading mineral resources. The licence specifies the minerals, geographic area, and duration for which the holder is permitted to perform mining operations.
Mr Jimoda said that when the governor assumed office in 2022, he established a Solid Mineral Committee to comprehensively study the state of Osun State’s mineral resources.
He explained that the committee’s findings included the discovery that all the state-inherited licences are loaded with accumulated service charges that the last government did not pay at all.
He said the report noted that the last government could not account for revenue as floated by a company, Hoffman and Danger, to which all the miners in the state were reporting.
“No single payment was paid into the state government purse. The functionaries of the last government actually knew that 9 August 2023 was the expiry date, yet they did not pay service charges nor make any preparation for conversion from exploration leases to mining leases.
“They abandoned our assets with Segilola Resources Operating Limited, with billions of naira of assets, dividends and taxes. They denied the state of huge returns.
“The administration revived and expanded the mining sector by stopping imminent loss of inherited mining licence due to non-payment of renewal fees by the Oyetola administration,” he said.
Speaking further on the progress recorded in the mining sector, he said the mining sector achieved a lot, such as securing the shareholding from Segilola Resources Operation Limited worth around N7 billion while dividends worth 64,000 Canadian dollars are being paid by Thor Exploration Limited every three months from January, 2025 till date.
“We have also collected taxes worth N1.7 billion, as against less than N50 million collected during the tenure of the last administration. Our Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) from alluvial mining, artisanal mining and others has improved tremendously.
“The IGR we generated in April 2023 (one month) is more than the IGR generated in one year (2022) by former governor Oyetola. Governor Adeleke did not sell a single licence. The current mining sector under him is characterised by an increased IGR, environmentally friendly operation and excellent capacity building,” Mr Jimoda said.
He said the governor paid all the accumulated service charges around April/May 2023, and the state government has been paying continuously.
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He added that the government immediately commenced processes for applying for the conversion of all exploration leases to mining leases.
“We did environmental auditing by the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) as a condition for applying for conversion of exploration leases to mining leases. We got consent letters from (paramount rulers and land owners) for conversion from exploration leases to mining leases.
“We also acquired a Certificate to Operate environmental protection and rehabilitation programs. These three conditions took us to June/July 2023. We applied for conversion on the 2nd of August, 2023. However, the Cadastral Units of our Exploration Leases were around 800-960 Cadastral Units.
“The new submission model at Cadastral Office can only accommodate a maximum of 250 cadastral units, while our Exploration Leases, which we bought from Nigerian Mining Corporation (NMC) through Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), are higher (800-960CU);
“We broke them down into three to four mining leases, depending on the largeness of the exploration leases. We prepared applications for 39 mining leases across exploration leases which were about to expire. The total of 11 mining leases were accepted for processing; the remaining are pending,” he said.
