Zamfara State Government Responds To Ijaw Youth Leaders Over Gold Ownership

Zamfara State Government Responds To Ijaw Youth Leaders Over Gold Ownership

By Rowlandgate.

As Zamfara state continues the show off with the presentation of the state’s major mineral resources which is Gold, there have been calls to scrutinize the ownership and revenue structure of the raw material as some major stakeholders have queried the state’s ownership of a national raw material.

Earlier this year, the executive governor of Zamfara state, Bello Matawalle had paid a scheduled visit to the presidency to intimate President Buhari of the extent the state has gone with gold mining.

That necessitated the calls by some youth leaders in the Niger delta to query why the state is allowed to own raw materials but the Niger Delta states have to turn out all the proceeds from oil exploration to the FG.

In countering the insinuations, the Special Adviser on Public Enlightenment, Media, and Communication, Zailani Bappa, however, said any information on the state government’s ownership of gold found in the state over time was false.

According to the governor’s aide, the statement from the Ijaw Youth leaders is nothing but a means to deceive the public and to pass the wrong information.

He blamed the elites and political stakeholders who are both indigenes of Zamfara State and other regions of the country for peddling wrong information about the Zamfara gold.

The governors aide also added that most of the elites who are putting out the false information are individuals who were illegally mining the gold in the state.

The issue with the gold ownership was said to have started trailing in when the governor revoked most of their illegal mining licenses.

This warranted the plan to blackmail the governor by giving the state a bad name by mis-informing the general public about the position of ownership of gold found in the state.

The aide therefore added that the gold reserve in the state is 100% under the exclusive list and is still owned by the FG which at the moment, is currently undergoing the process of licensing of companies empowered by the Federal Government to mine the gold on its behalf.

Bappa further gave clarity on the gold bars recently presented to the president by the Governor Bello Matawalle.

He said the bars were stolen gold that were illegally mined before the state government placed the ban.

He further stressed that the bars were sold in exchange for weapons which have been used to terrorize the region in recent times.