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The Nigerian federal government has enlisted the Mines Marshals, a unit of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defense Corps (NSCDC), to address the problem of illegal mining and trafficking of solid minerals from Nigeria.
The gathering took place at the Ministry of Solid Minerals Development in Abuja on Thursday.
The marshals would be supervised by the federal ministry of solid minerals development.
An initial 60 NSCDC personnel would be drawn from each state and the federal capital territory (FCT) to be part of the marshals.
The Minsiter for Solid Minerals Development, Dele Alake urged the operatives to stop theft and other nefarious activities around the country’s solid minerals sites
The minister commended Olubunmi-Ojo for working tirelessly towards the creation of the marshals.
“Today’s event of unveiling and formally handing over the specially trained and selected civil defence structure to engage illegal miners and sanitise our mining environment was also part of what we conceived at the inter-ministerial committee chaired by me,” Alake was quoted in a statement by Segun Tomori, his media aide.
“I am very happy to let the public know that from the outset we said, we are going to tackle insecurity in the mining sector and the first batch of the security apparati is what we are launching today.”He said
