The Senator representing Nasarawa South, Mohammed Onawo

says he is sponsoring a bill to tackle alleged illegal mining by foreigners in the country.

Onawo (PDP-Nasarawa) said this on Thursday in Abuja while speaking with newsmen on his agenda for his zone.

The lawmaker said that the bill which was listed for first reading was titled “Solid Minerals Development Commission”.

“The bill will be taken for the first time; this bill is to create a solid minerals development commission that will bring about the unification and improvement of solid minerals in Nigeria.

“We are a very rich nation naturally; God has endowed us with almost everything but the way we are harnessing it is what is making our people poor by the day.

“We allow foreigners come, go to our localities, start mining without regards to the laws of the land and they take away millions on a daily basis.

“They go to our local governments, give our local chiefs 5,000 dollars, 10,000 dollars and they look at it as a lot of money.

“Some of these things should be mined and processed here. When they are mined and processed here, our people are going to be better for it, employment will be created.”

Onawo also said that he would ensure that more federal presence was attracted to Nasarawa state at large.

He said that a dam which is situated in Doma Local Government Area had gone comatose pledging to partner with the Federal Government to revive the dam.

“In the state, we have the second largest dam in Doma Local Government and it has been lying down here since 1988.

“We had talked and talked but there has been no much money that has been put there to become a source of revenue that it is supposed to be.

“It is supposed to be for irrigation; it is supposed to be for water supply. With the crisis in Ukraine, attention is being moved to Nigeria for agricultural products.

“A lot of people have come to my community they want to farm but the dam, all the infrastructure that had been put in place, they have been put down.

“This is because they have been down there for too long some of them were stolen, some have gone comatose, the generator is down, the power supply there is poor.

“All of these things are things that we definitely have to come in partnership with the Federal Government to be given attention; to be put in proper use and there are so many other things we can partner together,” Onawo said.

Speaking further, Onawo said that though the removal of fuel subsidy was done with a good intention “it was ill-timed.

“They said we are losing N400 billion every month. And they said the palliative is N500 billion to share N8,000 to 12 million people. How did they come about this figure of 12 million.”

He said that the best way to ameliorate the plight of citizens was to “take up something that will reduce hardship especially as it concerns transportation.

“What stops the federal government from saying that we have N500 billion we want to use it for palliative; let’s use this N500 billion and buy 2,500 buses.

“If you divide these 2,500 buses by 774 local government, each local government will get 32 buses. In the course of this, you will find that jobs will be created.”

Source: News Agency of Nigeria