By Henry Uche
Sanator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan in a monitored interview on Channels TV, spoke on various issues including the few number of women legislators at the National Assembly, and the Gold Reserve Bill she sponsored, which had scaled second Reading.
It’s your first time here after your inauguration
Yes, I took a break. I took the much deserved break
How has it been for you being a senator of the federal republic of Nigeria?
It’s been quite interesting because everything is as expected. I’m busy legislating, reciting and representing my people and I’ve also been able to strike a balance with my home. I still cook, I still do everything, so striking a balance, that’s what matters more to me. I’m glad that makes people happy so far, and I’ve been able to learn the ropes quickly and in the Senate. It’s my very first bill.
Managing local politics in Kogi?
I visit home often trying to avoid distractions and ensuring that there are no aggrieved parties, mending fences mind you; my election was one way whereby people across all political platforms voted for me; grateful for them. But most importantly is am I focused on delivering my promises that I had captured in my manifesto, which is to project their very concerns with regards to the healthcare situation, educational reforms, and all of that. And I’ve done pretty much well.
So it is less of political fights now and battles?
I am now working. It’s not time for politicking. It was time for the elections, and now it’s time to work. And I find fellow senators in this National Assembly quite amazing across all parties.
Worried that there are only four female senators among 109
I am very worried and it’s a matter of fact, I’ve had quite a number of meetings with international organisations and embassies of certain countries that are really concerned and are willing to offer support, especially when we present the gender bill which I’m working closely with the distinguished Senator Kingibe and the two female senators. Yeah. There are certain conversations going on around that and we hope that by the time we present it will have a greater support, especially from our male folk and the president himself will assent to that. So we can have greater representation because four as a number of representatives for over 100 million people, I think that’s quite poor. And we learnt to raise our voices up whenever we’re not heard and the Senate president would always say, Senator Natasha, we’re all men here, so speak like a man. We’re not softening the ground for you, you decided to be here, so you have to forge ahead with us
How do you find yourself in a men dominated arena?
I would say first, for myself, I’d like to focus on the context of what I’m speaking about. And I don’t take into consideration that I’m a woman, so I don’t present femininity at work. I present competence. I’m a woman. I’m a Senator. I’m doing everything like everyone here; I stick to my ground.
Those who saw you fight your way politically in Kogi will say you fought like a man too
That’s what they say. They even said I fought tougher than a man.
Why are you interested in gold?
It all started the idea for the sponsor of the bill, the gold idea came up in February; a committee, the Banking Committee of which I’m a member of, we were screening the CBN Monetary Policy Committee and there sat the DG of SEC, which is Lamido Yuguda, and I asked him a question, if you become a part of the CBN Monetary Policy Committee, how do you intend to boost Nigeria’s gold reserve? And do you mind letting us know exactly what the status of the gold reserve is? And his response shocked me as it did shock the other members of the committee. He said that indeed, the CBN did have a gold reserve but the last time the CBN bought gold was in the 1960s and I thought, wait, since 1960s was when the CBN bought a gold bar and is the last time the Nigerian central bank took stock of the gold bar in its reserve was in the 1960s. And then that now led me to begin to research. I was like, okay, I remember, we were in primary school. We all have this atlas, where we saw the pyramids, granite pyramids up in the North, the city cotton.
And I remember gold in Elisha, so I was like if we had gold all this while, then why don’t we have renowned gold refineries, gold Processing Zones and then having them bullion and Nigeria’s own share being preserved? In the Central Bank? I mean, that will bring about economic stability, it will bring about apart from the job generation, the foreign direct investment, you know, to bring a lot of cushions right now that our currency is weakening.
So. I thought if we can get our gold exploited, explored and marketed to the very advantage of Nigerians, and of course, as well, where we can get our CBN begin to yearly, announce how much we have in our gold reserves, and we can begin to trade with them and we’ve seen countries that actually enter into foreign investments in trading with gold.
So I thought about that and I spoke to members of the committee, I began to network. I was also told that it was such a dangerous bill to pass considering certain interests with regards to the illegal mining. And I was also made aware that there could be some international forces that would frown at that because, you know, wherever there is chaos and uncertainty in Nigeria, there are certain people that benefit from that. So I took time, I spoke to my husband because I had to let him know that okay, this I’m working on but I made him understand the importance and he told me okay, go ahead. I’m saying this because as a woman, you know, we talk about women in politics, it is very important to know them.
That’s everything I do, I take into cognizance the dangers that my family could be exposed to. And then so first thing I did was to let my husband know that this is what I was going to do. And then once I got okay, also the senate president and a few other senators around that I began to work to lobby to develop. It took about four months to develop the 40 page draft of the bill. So I knew that there was going to be a need for the gold reserve authority or the gold Corporation as the name may be called. We would need to have the artisanal miners taken into consideration because if you know right now, a lot of insecurity and killings take place in this gold saddled communities.
Also, we have a gold potential of over 40 billion US dollars.
Exactly, even much more than that. If you you calculate, if you multiply 300 million ounces, using ounces as measurement here, 300 million ounces by the rate of gold per ounce a day which is about 2300 US dollars. We’re talking about seven 100 billion dollars ($700bn) worth of gold.
This year alone, almost $1.5 billion worth of gold has gone into private gold mining, such exploration has gone into the private hands. That means that the nation has been shortchanged…
(Cuts in)
Definitely, once this legislative framework is established, and that will give birth to setting into Gold directories and the gold Authority which will be situated on the ministry of solid minerals. All of these regulations, we’re going to curb the excesses of the illegal miners. And mind you, the projections that you just gave are just minimum because we never really have an estimate of the true value of gold as it’s been exported out.
How much of the ills in the industry have you found out..
First, I will say this, so many lives have been lost because there were no mining regulations. About a few weeks ago, certain miners were trapped in an avalanche in Niger states. I think the greatest loss is the lives that are being killed or the people that have been buried in submerged mines. That happened because we have not set standards as to mine. So, this illegal miners go into these holes and dig and dig and dig in and are paid peanuts, they don’t understand, these communities that have gold don’t understand the true value of what they have. Because some of our communities and states are so blessed at every rainfall, we see gold, the ground shines and I will say the greatest loss that our country encounters is in regards to the loss of lives because of the encouragement of these illegal miners. And the second one is about the various community clashes. We’ve seen several communities displace people systematically, create chaos in communities that are blessed with minerals. And all of this happens because there are no regulations. Every time our Naira almost got to 2000 to $1, now imagine if we had over time, developed our gold reserve by deploying the very best international practices in gold. You know what we must have, not just rely on a loan or relying on oil.
How do you think the states and local community will benefit; are you thinking based on the experience of the Niger Delta region today?
Today, gold falls under the exclusive list just like oil whereby it’s a product of the Federal Government right. But I think in the course of this public hearing, because we’re going to invite the states as stakeholders to participate in why they would want the legislation to be drafted. In the bid to have a buyer participation in the spirit of true federalism, it only makes sense that gold could fall under the concurrent list whereby both the federal and the state would have a right to decide the terms of exploration and also benefit from the taxes that could be generated from that. Another advantage of this gold reserve for the good framework is environmental protection. Just like many other areas that have been mined. If you look at a typical area where gold is mined, the environment is usually degraded. I know and invest or should I say illegal miners, the big companies have done little on nothing about how the community are able to farm or fend for the kind of water they drink; mind you that for every area where gold is made, a lot of water is being utilized, so that means a lot of water is polluted. And imagine children drinking such water and everybody, everyone drinks water that is polluted. And these people usually suffer the greatest burn. So this regulation is such multifaceted that it takes care of every aspect, not just in terms of generating revenue for the government, but also giving better lives and quality of life for the environment, and the communities that this mineral is being harnessed from.
Are you getting experience from how they’re faring and what they have experienced over the last few years?
I under studied in the past few months, I read a lot about Indonesian mining sector. And how much just in a few years, just about four years that the Indonesian government decided to put a structure framework around nickel and gold. They were able to generate over 1,000 percent increase in income from this sector. So I did study that. I also looked at certain countries like Ghana, that actually has so much more gold than Nigeria and how they have poorly behaved you know, they have not been able to….
How many countries still trade in gold these days?
Oh!. It’s actually a lot of countries right now. India itself, Brazil, Russia, and many others. They are actually developing, some don’t just trade but they just develop their reserve as economic cushion. It was in the news about six days ago, or seven days ago that India has requested the return of its gold from the UK reserve. And there have been debates as to why is India calling that but then they just said no, they just want to have it. So a lot of countries are beginning to realise that; I mean paper currency that fluctuates and then as again, something more tangible asset. So that’s why in America, UK, France and Germany, countries that don’t even have gold are increasing their gold reserves. And you ask the question, where did they buy their gold from? Invariably, you can connect the dots when one country that has a lot of gold sells it illegally and post nothing at a loss, and other countries, even though they don’t trade on gold but constantly developing and building their gold reserves, for future sake.
Is the national anthem our problem? Why did you and your colleagues think that is what Nigeria needs at this stage of our lives? You voted in support?
If you listen to the words of the national anthem, I think they actually resonate more with the spirit of building patriotism. And that does not mean that the Old National Anthem which tried to honour our heroes past and works of our youth into national building, that doesn’t mean that it’s not in any way good, but I would just say that it wasn’t a unilateral decision. And neither was it just one arm of government that decided to deploy that. It was, I would say, a collective effort. And to those who are aggrieved, I would just say, read the words, the lyrics. The words alone cannot build a nationhood, but our actions will. So, let us put aside the debate on whether this is the right time to change a national anthem, but let us project more of how we can collectively support Nigeria to be better. I’m in PDP, but I have come to accept that President Tinubu from APC is a president of Nigeria to 2027 and everyday I wake up thinking, how can I contribute my own quota in that little space I find myself; how can I help my country grow? And that is why I’ve refused to join a lot of quite controversial issues. But I’ve thought of cracking my mind and bringing about gold bill as many others that I’m going to bring forth in the coming weeks and months. So I can bring about economic stability and help our country and that is what other Nigerians should do.
The controversial anti- grazing bill? How dare a lawmaker think that a cow should be seen at par with humans?
I think there was just some misconception and that what the distinguished Senator was trying to say was that the Nigerian constitutions allow free movement of persons and businesses across the country. That means if you’re an Igbo man, or you are a Yoruba man from the South or East, you are free to establish a business in the northern part, or whichever it is, as you know, the whole argument is that herding cattle as you see should be looked at as an economic concern, an economic process, such that the same interventions that the rice farmers get, the interventions that the cassava farmers get, the interventions that the fishermen get, so also should be similar interventions that the herdsmen should get.
And that, of course, due to climate change, and many other unforeseen circumstances that have befallen us, therefore, we should speak about controlled grazing spaces for this herdsman so that we will not have cows walking the streets and destroying other people’s homes, whatever.
Let us talk about how we can identify or nurture herding as an economic concern. That caused me again to do a bit of research and I looked at Argentina and looked at Holland, I looked at even America as it may be, as it is; how are they able to develop their herding business, and I discovered that they’re actually seeds. There are seeds for different kinds of grasses. So now, if you have cows that you are growing for milking, maybe it’s like to produce milk or whatever, then you go for more of the dry grass. For example, the dry grass has protein of about 26 percent. Imagine grass having protein of about 26 percent. So, it won’t be out of place if we begin to build the ecosystem around herding.
And so, a large piece of land for these farmers in selected states; what you are going to build in this confined space, you have your schools, you have your clinic facilities, you have an entire community for you. And we’re going to have these interventions because most of these herdsmen, the arguments they make is that they love their cows, they are connected to their cows. They can’t watch their cows starve, that they don’t even like the fact that they have to walk away from their wives and children for months nurturing these cows. And that actually cause conflict because when we stumble upon these farms, they then watch them eat. And that of course, is very wrong, but I’m asking the Federal Government if we can begin to look at herding as an economic concern, and understanding America, understudying countries like Brazil, Argentina and even Japan.
Do you know that in Japan, they actually massage these cows and that’s premium price so let us begin to see how can we grow our herding business to a point we begin to have our bottled milk; we begin to have butter, we begin to have a lot of even baby milk, the cows that produce baby milk are actually injected with DNA from human beings, that’s to tell you how advanced and how innovation and technology have been deployed into herding; so we need to go into that.