Alex Ohikere was recently appointed the director-general, National Steel Raw Materials Exploration Agency (NSRMEA). In this interview with RUTH TENE, he unfolds his plans for the agency.
Congratulations on your appointment; what do you hope to do differently from your predecessors?
Well, there are many things that we tried to do when I was acting (DG) as I believe in adding value to whatever I meet on ground, and also try to maintain what we have. So, when I took over, we started carrying out some renovations of some dilapidated sections of the office. We also discovered that in our previous work, we had so much information not properly packaged – as you know, going to the field and acquiring data is not the end of the matter; you have to make it is presentable. So, we decided to do that. We upgraded the old maps and also digitised the ones that were not and, of course, that is apart from carrying out the various mandates of the agency. As you know, the agency is mandated to carry out, among other things, exploration of steel raw materials both within and outside the country to make sure that we have the raw material requirements of Ajaokuta Steel, Alaja Steel and, if possible, export some of these ores. We have exploration bases in five locations including Bauchi, Obi in Nasarrawa State – the place we used as base while carrying out exploration for coal in the Obi coal field. It is? a big camp and we used to be in Makurdi, but we shifted base to Obi. Then we have one in Lokoja which covers mainly the iron ores and fluxes, like marble, dolomites; then Owerri? zonal office which specializes in refractory clays, Bentonitic clays and coal. Akure zonal office exploration base is also working on refractory clays, dolomites and foundry materials. Gusau in Zamfara State is blessed with abundant mineral resources including iron ores, manganese, wofromite – which are ferro-alloys. Those are the areas we are working on. And, like I said earlier, we recently discovered very high quality iron ores; apart from where we had worked before in Itakpe and Ajabanoko in Kogi State, there are very good iron ores occurring in Kaduna, Nasarawa, Zamfara and Katsina states and recently also in Yobe State, very rich ores that will not need much beneficiation to charge them in the blast furnace. We have tried to maintain the structures on ground and want to add value to them.? We will do this through the cooperation of the staff and, I think, they are cooperating with me.
What are the challenges you met on ground and how do you intend to tackle them?
Challenges that we have always faced in this place is lack of sound equipment. Most of the rigs we have are very old – they were purchased in the early 70s, and you discover that if you are carrying out some core drilling, everyday you spend a lot of money and time on maintenance. Luckily last year, the agency got a new rig that has just been delivered to us, and I know that it is going to help us to overcome that major challenge. Recently, while we were in South Africa in the course of several paper presentations, I was challenged when a company,? not government or parastatal? anyway, working somewhere in Bushveld Complex, in northern Johannesburg,? exploring for platinum group of minerals, said they deployed 30 drilling rigs at a time on one site.? The best we had done not too long ago was when we did some work in Yobe State where we deployed two rigs and we were making noise over that feat! So when I heard that, I was humbled and challenged that we still had a long way to go. What we do here? is to facilitate, make data available for people to come in and invest. We may not be able to give detailed data on all deposits, but we want to get to the level of, at least, being sure that what we want you to come and work on occurs in commercial quantity and quality.
?
Is it that you cannot give the accurate data, or that it is impossible to get?
It is possible. I made an example where I said in Yobe, where we did some work on consultancy and? the state government paid, we drilled 40 boreholes on one site. That was why we had to deploy two rigs at a time, but going by the way we are funded here, it is not easy to get fund when needed. We work according to (budget) releases; that is a major challenge. If we have the resources, rigs that are good enough to drill, and we have money – because you need money to do the work, to buy drilling materials, pay allowances and other things, so if we have all that, we can get detailed and good results like these international companies are getting.
What do you see as the cause of the lead poisoning in Zamfara State? Would you say government is doing enough to control it?
By now, everyone should know the main cause of the lead poisoning. You know (that) gold is hardly seen in hand specimen until detailed analysis is carried out; the gold that they are mining in Zamfara from the rock crystals and the method of mining is the main problem: the people mine it in a crude form; they carry it from the site to a settlement to process; they carry the ore to their houses to crush, using ordinary crushing machine, and this is why I keep saying that the level of our mining sector is a little bit crude. In fact, most of the jobs that need to be done by machines at mining sites are being done by hand. They carry these things to the house and use the ordinary machines used for grinding tomatoes to grind gold containing rock (because it has to made into powder form; since there is gold in the rock, you want to disaggregate it, you want to remove the gold , so you have to crush it to certain grain sizes). Even women pound the crushed rock in the house. The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) carried a story sometime ago and even carried pictures of the processing, and you could see the dust being inhaled by the people doing the pounding and polluting the surrounding.? In such cases, you cannot stop people from inhaling the lead dust which is poisonous. Maybe for sometime they had been inhaling it and the water around may be contaminated.? It is the level of technology and development coupled with people looking for quick money, and you know there is hunger in such community – no work to do; so once they see that there is gold there, they go to any length to get it out and sell. It is like cash: once you get gold, you can easily sell it. That is the problem with Zamfara – the method of mining and processing is very crude and harmful. The people did not know; they needed to be educated. But we are now trying to educate them, though the havoc has already been done, because this thing may linger on since it is in their blood system already.
With deregulation everywhere, how does the agency intend to work with smaller communities?
You know (that) ours is exploration. Nigerian miners do not go into exploration because it is a highly specialised field and capital intensive. For an average Nigerian miner, as soon as they see something on the surface, like iron ore or gold, they start mining.
How do they recognise the minerals?
They do; some of them are very intelligent. Like the farmers, when they come across something strange, they take it to somebody they feel would know.They used to bring samples to our office for analysis. By the time you analyse it and tell them there is gold in it, people will rush there, whereas the proper thing to do is to carry out detailed studies on mineral occurrence to? confirm that it is a deposit and determine the quality and quantity and, of course, design how to mine it, and whether is it going to be surface or underground. You are supposed to do that on paper before you go into the work but, here, our miners do not do that.
?
In how many states do you have? offices?
Zamfara, Kaduna (which is, of course, the headquaters), Bauchi, Nasarawa,Kogi, Ondo and Imo states. You know there is no state in this country that does not have one kind of mineral or the other. In the making of steel, we have over 20 minerals – it is not only iron that you need. These minerals are scattered all over the country. Some states have iron, others have limestone, others have manganese, clays e.t.c.
?Investors are beginning to show interest in the sector; what do you see as the challenges that have held them back?
The challenges that have always held them back is the complaint of lack of data. If you have resources and you do not advertise it, people will not know, and that is what the minister (of Mines and Steel Development) is trying to do now: to tell people that this is what we have. In our recent visit to South Africa for the Indaba mining conference, so many people came to the Nigerian Room and many international mining companies showed interest in our iron ores because there is? a global demand for iron. People are going all over the place looking for where to get iron ore and, of course, some of them are already here, and we want to see if they can work with our local investors because our local investors are handicapped – they have challenges of equipment. So these rich international companies can come with their equipment and experience and have joint ventures with our people here.
How do you intend to tackle the security challenges to your agency?
There is virtually no place that is secure. In business, there has to be risks – security is one of the risk. Like in the oil sector, there was? the problem of insecurity before now in the Niger Delta, but that did not stop the foreign investors from coming. The big time investors will come irrespective of security challenges; once they know that you have the materials and they need it, they will come. On infrastructure, to evacuate our minerals by road is not the best method; the ideal is through rail lines and, luckily, I think we have rail lines that you can now start to link to the deposits. The government is trying to link the main lines now, because if we really want to evacuate our products, we need to have a sound rail system. As to security as it relates to the agency, we do not just go into the field like that. Any place we go, the first thing we do is to see the local chief and tell him what we are doing. Most of them cooperate, especially in the northern part of the country, once you tell them you work for the federal government and you are looking for this and that mineral. Of course, they know that once something is discovered, it will open up the place, generate employment. When we tell them the benefits, they will even mobilise the local security outfit to follow us. As for the office, you cannot just come in here without being checked. We have bomb and metal detectors.
What targets are you setting for the agency in 2012?
We have already identified some minerals that we want to conclude the exploration, such as Ajabanoko, Agbado-okudu. We have very few more boreholes to drill to conclude; so also coal in Lamzachikila in Adamawa State. We want to conclude it before the end of the year. We also want to refurbish some of our rigs that are not functional now because they are so deficient and consume lots of materials because of their age. I want to emphasise our plan on training and retraining of the staff so that they can learn the modern methods of mineral exploration.
What other source of funding are you looking at for the agency?
Like I said before, we are empowered to carry out consultancy services. Apart from our primary functions, we have been doing that for some state governments, so what we want to do now is to extend it to the private sector, like miners, though in most cases, they do not want to spend monies on detailed exploration before they start mining.? Though we have to pay the money into government coffers, but by the time we buy some project vehicles from the contract sum, we will not need to depend on government or have that put in the budget. My staff works like a company, working for 24 hours when necessary.
?