Nigeria to set up state minerals corporation

The proposed Nigerian Solid Minerals Corporation is intended to support domestic mining of gold, coal, iron ore, bitumen, lead, limestone and barite, a minister said.

"The proposed corporation will seek and secure partnership investment agreements with big multinational companies worldwide to leverage on the attractive investment-friendly regime operating in the country to secure massive foreign direct investment for the mining sector," Nigeria's Solid Minerals Minister Dele Alake said in a statement.

Two existing state-backed enterprises - the National Iron-Ore Company and the Bitumen Concessioning Programme, could be folded into the new company, Alake said.

"The Ministry has to take the bull by the horns if the country must reap the harvest of the trillion dollars worth of minerals under the ground across the country," Alake said. "To achieve this laudable objective, there has to be a paradigm shift in the strategy by re-positioning the sector in terms of the human and capital factors that can drive its transformation."

Illegal mining crackdown

The government will also establish a mines police force, to operate from October this year, to detect illegal mining.

"I am giving illegal miners in this country just 30 days grace to join cooperatives or find another vocation," Alake told local press on Sunday.

Nigerian police recently closed down an unlicensed Chinese-run titanium ore mining operation.