The Federal Government has announced the cancellation of 924 inactive mining licences.
Dr. Dele Alake, the Minister of Solid Minerals Development, revealed this in Abuja on Wednesday while he criticised the corrupt practices surrounding license issuance.
The minister stated that this misconduct hinders sector growth and deters legitimate investors from engaging in Nigeria’s mining industry.
The revoked licenses include 528 for exploration, 22 mining leases, 101 quarry licenses, and 273 small-scale mining permits.
Mr Alake explained that a grace period of 30 days was given to defaulters to rectify their statuses, and to state reasons for dormancy on the sites allocated to them in line with Constitutional provisions.
He said that 963 licences were published in the official gazette of the Federal Government in December 2023 awaiting revocation.
Out of these, only 39 of the listed licence holders responded to the warning as they either moved to site immediately or they stated challenges hindering their operations, he added.
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Mr Alake stated that the revocation of the licences was taken to sanitise and reposition the mining sector to boost Nigeria’s economic profile and to accelerate its industrialisation.
He noted that the “first-come, first-served’’ rule in the licencing regime was a disincentive for genuine investors as the rule prohibited issuance of fresh licence on a site already allocated.
The ministry revoked 1,663 mining licences in November 2023 because of failure by licensees to pay statutory charges and other dues to the Federal Government.
Mr Alake said that following the revocation of the 1,663 licences in 2023, government received a lot of pressure to reconsider the punitive measure.
According to him, in response to the pressure, government issued a policy for defaulters to make restitution and show remorse in order to be considered for reinstatement.
He said that the restitution varied depending on the category of licence revoked.
“The highest, which is on mining attracts a restitution N10 million per revoked licence payable to the Federal Government.
“For the small-scale licences, the restitution is N7.5 million for reinstatement and for exploration licence, the restitution is N5 million,’’ Mr Alake said.
