Senator Adams Oshiomhole, a former governor of Edo State, is the Chairman, Senate Committee on Interior. In this interview, he speaks on his allegation that retired military generals are funding illegal mining in the country and the political crisis in Edo State, ANAYO EZUGWU writes

The allegation of the nation’s solid mineral assets being feted away by retired generals was by you and you feel that the nation is not doing enough. Is there evidence to support your claim?

Well, I think sometimes the media takes statements out of context. I sat on that committee as a member of the Appropriations Committee and the way the Senate works, every subcommittee submits its report to the Committee on Appropriations, and then we ask questions and they answer.

One of the complaints of the chairman of the Committee on Solid Minerals was that there is a sector, where people, who are not Nigerians, come in and cart away gold and other precious metals and solid minerals.

He gave an estimate as to what he thought we can earn as a nation. Yet another senator also said that. Ironically, this is another statement in its own right. He said ironically Nigeria was searching for more solid minerals when they stumbled by accident to the liquid gold, the crude oil.

So, the objective was solid minerals and then they found crude oil and what an irony of fate that at the end of the day, our mainstay is crude oil and we are not making money from solid minerals and they lamented the way foreigners are coming to cart away these minerals.

So, they were asking for more money for certain agencies to ensure that we develop our solid minerals and the kind of resources we believe we can earn that might even be much more than we are earning from oil.

There are a couple of countries that rely exclusively on solid minerals even within the African continent. And I then reply that it is not that money is not being made from solid minerals.

It is impossible for anyone, particularly foreigners far away outside the African continent to come to Nigeria, to locate a site, when they are not geologists, and they go straight to where they can find a particular solid mineral and start mining it.

So, it may be correct to say government is not able to harvest what accrues from solid minerals exploration and that illegality is being done and people know those behind it.

I then gave an example of myself and one correction that must be made, and this is not fair on the part of those who report. At no time did I say retired generals. I have many friends who are retired and who are suffering, and who can’t change batteries in their cars. They retired as pure military officers. They never did any quartermaster job.

They never had any political exposure even in the days of military rule. So, it would be not correct to suggest to anyone that all retired generals are involved in a particular crime. It’s not sensible to say so. That would put them on reckless, sweepy generalization.

That was not what I said. I said the problem is that some and I still believe it to be so. I said some retired generals are involved, and somehow, we are not deploying the same force as a nation that we deploy to protect our oil in Niger Delta.

And I said, a retired general, who I had the honour of appointing, and who graciously accepted to serve as a returnee officer in the primary election when I was national chairman of APC, in his report back to me as chairman after presenting the report of the primary, said: ‘Adams, you are worried about the primaries.

Part of the complexity of dealing with criminality in Nigeria is the ethnic dimension that is evoked and sometimes compounded by political affiliation

But what I have seen is far more serious than that. He said the banditry that is evolving or kidnapping, as it then was, is frightening. There was no use of the word banditry then, so he said those kidnappers in the first instance are in the services of some powerful retired generals.

He said they use choppers to the illegal sites and as they take the mined gold and whatever it is that they are mining, they drop weapons for civilians who have been trained on the use of those weapons to protect the illegal mining activity.

He added that sometimes, of course, they offer that protection, but sometimes they divert these arms to now terrorize innocent citizens, or sometimes kidnapping. And I then said to him, there is no way I can comprehend this story because I have no military training or security training.

I pleaded with him to do a summary, not more than two, a maximum of three pages, that I will submit, as chairman of the ruling party at that time to the president, who incidentally is a retired general before becoming the president of Nigeria, so that he will understand the issues clearer.

I also advised him to put his phone number, so that the president can call him if he so wishes, for him to give him the detailed security dimension because he warned me that if that thing is not checkmated, what is happening in the North-East will be a child’s play.

And he told me that this gold runs from that area to the South-West, up to Osun State and elsewhere. I also know in my part of the state, there are solid minerals.

So, what did the president do with the letter?

I took the letter as I promised him because I saw a patriotic officer, though retired, but not tired of his loyalty to Nigeria is not weakened. And I gave it to then President Muhammadu Buhari and I said, sir, go through it, it is self-explanatory.

I can only advise the president, my advice is that you can call him and he can give you more graphic details of what he saw and what he knew, and his fears about what will happen if this is not nipped in the bud. So, I said, well, we lament, as the committee was doing, that we are not exploiting our solid minerals.

That is not true. It has been exploited, but it’s been done on a large scale illegally. I stand by that. I know it is the truth because the general has no business flattering me. I also know that at some other level, there are pockets of people talking about some nationalities coming to do illegal mining.

Can you, just like I argued when I was at the NLC, when they used to talk about smuggling, and I said something of such volume cannot happen without anybody seeing it. So, you can’t have that scale of illegal activity without men and women of power providing cover. In that statement in the Senate, I said, can you imagine who can afford a chopper.

And it’s not every chopper that can carry out that kind of activity. It cannot be a civilian chopper. A chopper that can carry arms, drop them, carry mine items and take them out to a location where they prepare them before they pass through our borders.

What you have is not different from what was reported…

I heard you here say retired generals; that’s not fair. Some is what we’re talking about. That’s the correct way to say it. But also, this is not to limit it to some generals. Perhaps, that’s the more appropriate word because I limited it to what that general told me.

He mentioned to me that some retired generals, very powerful people are involved in it. But I also believe that there are other non-generals, who are also providing cover for these foreigners.

When you’re talking about the present government not doing what was done in the Niger Delta by deploying military might to handle the situation; why can’t the nation get to the foreigners and probably arrest them?

Now what I can say is this: There is no need to talk about the present government. If there is a disease that has been there and I spoke to that disease and I spoke to the time I became aware of the disease and I went on to name or describe my source of information and the step I took as a Nigerian to see if the then power can deal with it. Of course, utility dealt with it. My point is that I did not come to Abuja to lament.

I came to the Senate to listen, to hear cries, to hear stories, and to act on them. And in acting, that’s exactly what we did on the floor of the Senate. We drew Mr. President’s attention to this scale of abuse and this scale of looting of Nigeria’s solid minerals by foreigners or even by Nigerians themselves.

That is what it should be. Every day we sit in the Senate, particularly in plenary, we pass motions, not necessarily because he started the problem, not necessarily because he’s not doing something about the matter, but because we want more action.

That is what I went on to emphasize. I’m aware that the current Minister of Solid Minerals has taken steps to recruit what they call marshals to deal with some of these illegal miners. That, for me, is a wonderful initiative.

It is to acknowledge that something illegal is going on and it cannot be allowed. I appreciate that initiative that the president has appointed a minister, and the minister is concerned that we can’t be here and people are carting away our natural resources. So, he has set up some marshals, which is probably what is within his control.

But I said that I would like to see the government deploying the same amount of force in protecting our solid minerals and dealing with those who are involved in illegal mining, just like illegal bunkering, with the same force of JTF to deal with anyone involved. Let it not be seen as if when it comes to oil, we are ready because you are touching our vein. And this other one, because we don’t have the numbers, we seem to think that we can use less force.

And because the people involved are powerful, only superior power can neutralize them. I said so because for me, this is what the president will expect of senator. We have to draw his attention and to draw the country’s attention, so that when those people are being dealt with, you know this country, somebody will bring in a political motive.

Oh, this general, because he made a statement last week, that’s why they are dealing with him. Let people know that these are serious economic crimes. Part of the complexity of dealing with criminality in Nigeria is the ethnic dimension that is evoked and sometimes compounded by political affiliation.

Once they evoke the ethnic dimension, and even sometimes compounded by religion, and then summarized by political affiliation, the debate is closed and everybody becomes blind. The essence of democracy and of parliament is to raise issues as they arise. Now, this has arisen because the committee was lamenting.

And I said to the committee; our business in the Senate is not to lament. We should pass a resolution urging the government to deal decisively with these people, exactly with the same force that we are dealing with those who were involved in illegal bunkering.

Local government chairmen and their deputies were recently sacked in Edo State, which prompted the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to accuse APC of extermination of constitutional democracy. How would you react to that?

What do you expect PDP to do? What is extermination? If councilors under the constitution meet in full freedom and they raise the motion for whatever reason on the planet Earth, in the exercise of their constitutional duty as provided for in the Edo State Local Government Act or the relevant section of the Constitution, and impeach a chairman, how is that a problem? Is there a vacuum?

Now, who are the councillors that impeached their chairman? They are PDP councillors. The chairman impeached, is also of the PDP.

The person who becomes acting chairman as a result of impeachment is still PDP. How does APC come in? Now, if the governor was to say, stop, they would say he interfered.

The governor cannot stop councillors, particularly opposition councillors from impeaching opposition chairmen and replacing them with their opposition house leader as acting chairmen. So, what is the problem there? It is truly a case of people deceiving people.

How confident is the APC that the courts won’t overturn Governor Monday Okpebholo’s victory and the fear that Nigeria is gradually moving towards a one-party state?

These are two related questions. But on the first one, you, the media should stop encouraging statements that are subjudice.

You want me as a law-abiding citizen, a former governor, a sitting senator, a former chairman of a governing party, to sit down here and say, I know what the outcome of a tribunal will be.

The PDP has compromised the judges so they know what they are going to say. How did they arrive at that conclusion? If PDP goes low, we would rather go high.

The people voted for Monday Okpebholo; it is PDP that went to court to dispute it. So, t’s up to them to prove it. I think it is disrespectful to the court for anyone to predict the outcome of a matter before it.

And as for a one-party state, it is a democracy. Have you seen anybody the has been jailed for not joining a political party?