Mining, The Next Money Spinner For Benue

By Winnifred Ehimhen

Beside agriculture, Mining is the next huge source of Revenue for Benue state says Special Adviser to the governor of Benue State on Mining and Solid Minerals, Engineer Aondowase Andrew Kputu.

Engineer Kputu who stated this in a recent chat with journalists in Makurdi said the discovery of gold in Kwande local government area is merely an eye opener to the numerous mineral deposits that abound in the state noting that if properly harnessed the state would no longer be dependent on proceeds from oil.

He said the recent ban on all mining activities in Kwande local government is a welcome development as within the time frame all mining companies will be profiled and the illegal ones flushed out. It will be a time for sensitization of the locals on the benefits accrued to them, sensitization on the hazards that comes with illegal mining while the mining companies spells out their obligations to the host communities and the state.

Already he said modalities are been put in place to ensure the ban is carried out.

“Some people may not believe it but there is actually gold in Kwande local government area of Benue and the gold is of high quality too, it is about 22 carats”.

He said ” I started suspecting that there is the presence of gold in the state as far back as 2012 when i went through the map of the solid minerals of Benue state, the map didn’t show that there is a presence of gold in the state but with the rock formation in the state, I noticed that there is a particular rock formation that contains gold so, when I noticed the presence of sheets from part of the rocks in that part of Kwande local government area, I was wondering that if there is sheets in part of the rocks, there will be gold so I started suspecting that there is gold there because if you read the geological map of Nigeria, it is well known that gold is found in the rocks with sheets background, the sheets sphere start from Zamfara through Niger state all the way down to Osun state and if you notice, that is the  major region that there is gold in Nigeria.

After surveying the whole country, they discovered that there are still other areas that there is still gold occurrence. In the other regions which cut across Rivers state and part of Benue State in Kwande, there is still the formation of sheets so, at that point, I started suspecting that there will gold there.

The only problem was that I could access the other area because I was not familiar with the terrain towards the border with Cameron and all that. Then, in 2015, someone told me about gold in Benue and but I didn’t know the location because it was a colleague from other state that told me so, last year, October, I was in Kwande and I decided to stationed myself there and work for a while and I work with the local miners that have an idea of these things but sometimes they don’t really know what the mineral will be, they just said I found this thing here, I found this thing there and one of them took me to the area where they are mining gold, I went to the place, saw what they were doing and the artisanal miners were mining the gold deposit by the river side and I look at it just to confirm so that I can actually just to confirm what quality it will be  so I had to buy it from them because they can not just someone give for free no matter how small it may be because of the value”.

He adds ” It is no longer news, gold have been discovered in Kwande, the Nigerian Geological Survey Agency are also aware of that, what we are doing now is to follow up with them so that they would carryout regional exploration work to determine the quality and all of that, these are the kind of things an investor needs to know before they can invest their money”.