From uliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
The Federal Government and a German firm, Geo-scan GmbH, has signed a memorandum of understanding in the sum $700 million in solid mineral deposit.
Minister of Solid Minerals, Dele Alake, made the disclosure to State House Correspondents after the Federal Executive Council meeting presided over by President Bola Tinubu at the Presidential Villa.
According to him, the German company has the latest top of the line technologies and is a proprietary technology for exploration.
He said: “Mine is a way of announcement not the FEC’s approval at all. Yesterday, you were all aware and even attended the visit of the German Chancellor to our president.
“Of course the German Chancellor came in to strengthen bilateral relations between Nigeria and Germany. Now, for quite a while, my ministry has been talking to some highly technical companies in Germany. And since the visit of the German Chancellor yesterday (Sunday) underscored the importance of strengthening bilateral relations especially socio economic bilateral relations, I’m happy to announce that the Ministry of Solid Minerals broke a landmark record of signing an MOU with one of the top notch geo scientific technology companies in the world, which is Geo-scan GmbH, a German company.
“The company was also in delegation of the German Chancellor yesterday, and the MOU was signed yesterday through the SMDF, that is the solid minerals development fund.
“Now the significance of this epochal event is that this company has the latest top of the line technologies, and is a proprietary technology for exploration.”
Alake underlined the fact that when compared to existing worldwide techniques, the Geo-scan technology is not only more cost-effective but also locates mineral reserves three times faster.
“It means that you can see deep down up to 10,000 meters for the mineral deposits that are available. And if you are versed in the space of solid minerals, you know that it is exploration, exploitation, extraction, and the processes. You would know that exploration is an expensive business. Even the gathering of geo data is very expensive.”
He added that, “This particular technology, which is topnotch like I said, is 80 percent cheaper than the current processes in the world. It is three times faster to locate deposits down on your ground, and so it is with our own mineral deposits that we conservatively estimated at about $700 billion under the ground.
“And scrambling to exploit judiciously, we constitute about 0.02 percent of the global mining budget. And with this $700 billion estimation of our solid minerals deposit, we still have over 90 percent of the entire landscape of Nigeria unexplored.
“And because it’s an expensive business that underscores the significance of the landmark that we recorded yesterday with the Geo-Scan GmbH, supported also by the German chancellor, and our president, I’m happy to tell you now that there is no kobo commitment on the back of Nigeria. The company will come and establish its technology, and plant here, and move around the country to enable us to further explore all other mineral deposits that we have.
“At the end of the day, we cannot begin to put a figure on the amount of solid mineral resources that we have in Nigeria; lithium for instance.
“Like I said yesterday, critical minerals, which are called critical metals in international minerals and natural space, are in abundance in Nigeria and right now, the global trend is the clamour for climate change, green transition to green and clean energy.
“Now, this critical resource that we have in terms of solid minerals are also very significant in the production and manufacturing of electric vehicles, batteries, electronic components, all kinds of topnotch technological equipment in today’s world, and we have these things.
The minister said the MOU signed with Geo-scan GmbH was not only expected to drive solid mineral exploration and exploitation but also contribute substantially to Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
“This will significantly move us forward in achieving the renewable agenda of making solid minerals to become the next petroleum of Nigeria and contributing most significantly to the gross domestic product,” he added.
The Council also approved N5.9 billion to fund the access roads for the Abuja light rail system.
The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, noted that the President has set a timeline for the completion of the Abuja light rail, emphasising the importance of addressing the roads that connect to the railway.
Minister of Digital Economy, Tijani Bosun, said the government was pushing forward with the agenda to create quality jobs for the nation’s youth.
According to him, at the heart of this agenda is the newly launched “3 Million Technical Talent” programme, designed to train and employ millions of young technical professionals over the next four years.
Announced just two weeks ago, he said the programme’s initial target was to train 30,000 individuals.
“We’re happy to announce that while we were targeting just 30,000 for the first batch, we’ve actually received an application of over 550,000 applications from across the country. I think the spread in the application is also why we’re extremely excited about this programme.
“So, we’ve been in deep conversations with the state governors and different partner organizations.
“An announcement was made last week where IHS, one of the local infrastructure companies, committed N1 billion for the programme.
“We’ve been to states like Cross River State. We’ve been engaging states, like Kwara and Ogun states, where we’re looking to share some of the infrastructure in the process of being able to deliver this training programme to the applicant.
“I think one thing that is important to note is that we’re not just doing this as another training. We all know that technology under this government is becoming a major part of how we do things, and how we reposition public services, but you can’t really leverage technology if you don’t have the talents to drive it.
“So, for technology to truly work for Nigeria, we need a very deep workforce that can power our ambition, but the beauty also is that the world generally is adopting technology, and there’s shortage of people and talent globally for this,” he said .