Governor Adegboyega Oyetola of Osun state has stated that gold mining would assume the position of crude oil in the economy of the state in the future.
Oyetola who expressed the optimism to newsmen said his administration was taking mining activities from artisanal to corporate level, with the involvement of private sector players coming for exploration and export.
The Hope reports that Osun State was known for large deposits of minerals, including gold, lead, zinc, quartz, feldspar and several precious metals.
The governor said that apart from current efforts of his administration to achieve mining sufficiency, Osun was a beneficiary of the presidential initiative on mining.
“Give us a few years to come; gold would be our own oil in Osun State. Our state would be known for major supply of gold in Nigeria and around the world.”
Oyetola named a Canadian firm, known as Badger Mines as being already on ground, while the process of signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with another unnamed firm was underway.
“We are working with responsible miners. The two Canadian firms are doing pretty well and I believe that in no distant future we will be able to harvest a lot of our gold and refine them.
“I can talk about Badger Mines while the second one is still doing the MOU but the first one is already out there doing exploration and the result has been so far, so good.
“Don’t forget that we also have the Segilola Gold Project, which has established a refinery for gold in Osun State. It is a state government initiative too.
“We are also collaborating with the Federal Government on mining. Our state is one of the two states, along with Kebbi State, selected as pilot states for the Presidential Artisanal Gold Mining Development Initiative (PAGMI).
‘So, the intention is to actually encourage our youths to go into mining by giving them skills and some supports, instead of the usual diggers and things like such that they use excavators.
“The problem I have with that is the question of remediation. They dig but they don’t remediate. That is not good enough. They end up destroying our environment.