Nigeria’s leadership role in Africa’s resource governance for economic development received a major boost at the ongoing annual Investing in African Mining Indaba conference in Cape Town, South Africa, as Alex Ndubuisi Nwegbu, director general of the Nigerian Geological Survey Agency (NGSA), was on Sunday sworn in as president of the Organization of African Geological Surveys (OAGS).
Taking over from Anna Nguno, who is from the Republic of Namibia, the new president will head the association for the next three years.
“It is on that basis that I would like to say that I am honoured to stand before you to accept the responsibility on behalf of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to lead the new executive. I also stand here on behalf of the executive committee to say thank you in electing us to serve in our new capacity,” Nwegbu stated during his acceptance speech in Cape Town.
OAGS started in South Africa ten years ago as an initiative of the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) through the African Mining Partnership (AMP).
Its mandate involves delivering on some strategic objectives, including capacity building for industry players, sharing knowledge, achieving financial stability, and constructive engagement with development partners towards effective utilization of African resources in order to develop the continent’s economy.
Government institutions, political leaders, civil society groups and private sector companies now commonly agree that without prudent exploitation and utilization of natural resources in Africa, the continent stands to remain at the bottom of global economic development ladders, while continuously feeding other regions of the world with requite raw materials to develop their own economies.
According to latest data from the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) an estimated $50 billion is lost annually by African countries due to opaque dealings involving foreign mining companies and their local collaborators, especially through unstructured, illegal and unreported mineral exploitation transactions across the continent.
However, Nwegbu, while speaking exclusively with BusinessDay on the sidelines of the Cape Town mining conference, said his vision is to return Africa to the path of growth through the formulation and implementation of strategic policies on effective mineral resource governance and utilization.
Kayode Fayemi, Nigeria’s minister of mines and steel development, while delivering a keynote speech at the event, said “I can assure you that our representative, Alex Nwegbu, will offer purposeful direction and leadership to justify the faith you have placed in us. I offer my assurances that the Government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria will give the new OAGS Executive the full support to achieve the onerous tasks ahead.”
“The mandate of the OAGS is at the heart of the development needs of Africa, considering the extractives industry is a major driver of the economies of most of our countries,” he added.
The minister further explained that, taking into account that over 30 percent of the world’s mineral endowments can be found in Africa, we ought to have fared better by leveraging our mineral resources to drive sustainable development, and address our pressing socio-economic challenges, adding further that, “African countries have no reason to be poor.”
Being the umbrella organization that brings together national institutions whose responsibilities are to generate, archive and disseminate geosciences information, Fayemi said OAGS is taking a lead role in rewriting Africa’s negative narrative.
This is because geo-science data and information hold the keys to unlocking the entire mining value chain and industrializing Africa, and beneficial mining of mineral resources starts with knowing in definite terms what is deposited under the ground.
In 2008, the African Mining Vision (AMV) was adopted by African Union (AU) ministers in charge of mineral resources.
According to Fayemi, “it is our collective responsibility to ensure that the OAGS becomes a strong contributor in achieving the desired objective of meeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) captured in the AMV,” Fayemi assured, while noting that “the adoption of our mining road map in Nigeria is our conscious effort towards domesticating the AMV.”
