{"id":21774,"date":"2020-06-19T08:26:16","date_gmt":"2020-06-19T08:26:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?p=21774"},"modified":"2020-06-19T08:26:27","modified_gmt":"2020-06-19T08:26:27","slug":"nigerian-govt-spotlights-seven-minerals-to-boost-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?p=21774","title":{"rendered":"Nigerian govt spotlights seven minerals to boost economy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/www.ripplesnigeria.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/Olamilekan-Adegbite.jpg\" alt=\"Buhari issues marching order for completion of Ajaokuta steel\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Olamilekan Adegbite, has said the Nigerian government has prioritised seven of the country\u2019s strategic minerals to harness the potential of the industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Adegbite made the declaration on Thursday in Abuja at a webinar arranged by the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), where he identified the minerals as bitumen, coal, limestone, iron ore, lead-zinc and barite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He stressed that Nigeria was endowed with more than 44 mineral resources deposited in over 500 locations across the 36 states of the federation as well as the Federal Capital Territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cSeven of these minerals have been designated strategic to unlock the enormous potential in the sector. They are coal, iron ore, bitumen, gold, limestone, lead-zinc and barite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAlongside the seven strategic minerals, the ministry is also looking into key minerals to fuel the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThese include metals such as titanium, tungsten, lithium and cobalt, which have various applications in futuristic industries such as aerospace, telecoms and electric vehicle manufacturing,\u201d Adegbite said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He lauded the NESG for its efforts in reducing the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the economy, further stating that President Muhammadu Buhari\u2019s administration had been taking steps to diversify the economy from an oil-dependent one through the development of the mining and agricultural sectors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The minister stated that mining offered massive economic potential to diversify the economy, generate employment and increase government revenue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to him, the structural reforms deployed in the sector were aimed at aiding the emergence of a vibrant private sector and promoting a resource-based industrialisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt is predicated on the principle that government serves as a regulator, providing an enabling environment for businesses to thrive. We are trying to stimulate mineral processing across the country using a cluster or hub approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cEach cluster will be provided with road and power infrastructure to encourage investors in processing and refining equipment to support a network of miners and processors.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He noted that the revamp, completion and operation of the Ajaokuta Steel Plant would create jobs help generate revenue, saying that the project was based on a bilateral agreement between Nigeria and Russia with funding from the Afreximbank and the Russian Export Centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Adegbite expressed the optimism that Nigeria\u2019s mining sector was on course to attain its goal of five per cent contribution to the Gross Domestic Product in the next five years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Olamilekan Adegbite, has said the Nigerian government has prioritised seven of the country\u2019s strategic minerals to harness the potential of the industry. Adegbite made the declaration on Thursday in Abuja at a webinar arranged by the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), where he identified the minerals as bitumen, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Nigerian govt spotlights seven minerals to boost economy &raquo; WatchDog Plus Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?p=21774\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Odofin\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?p=21774#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Economy\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?cat=21\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"Nigerian govt spotlights seven minerals to boost economy\"}]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Nigerian govt spotlights seven minerals to boost economy &raquo; WatchDog Plus Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?p=21774","author":"Odofin","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?p=21774#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Economy","item":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?cat=21"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Nigerian govt spotlights seven minerals to boost economy"}]}]}},"rttpg_featured_image_url":null,"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"Odofin","author_link":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?author=2"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"<a href=\"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?cat=21\" rel=\"category\">Economy<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"The Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Olamilekan Adegbite, has said the Nigerian government has prioritised seven of the country\u2019s strategic minerals to harness the potential of the industry. Adegbite made the declaration on Thursday in Abuja at a webinar arranged by the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), where he identified the minerals as bitumen,&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21774"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21774"}],"version-history":[{"count":-4,"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21774\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}