In an interview with ARISE NEWS on Friday, Nasarawa Governor Abdullahi Sule said that the future is not in oil anymore, but in rare metals, especially lithium.
“This is a factory that started building just about a year ago and because of the rapid nature of building the factory, today it’s been commissioned.
“The good news is that they have enough material in one location to be able to produce this 4000 tons per day for the next 15 years. That is the dream for Nasawara State and I thank God we’ve been able to produce it.”
The governor stated what brought about the building of the lithium factory in the state.
He said, “All minerals are under the federal government. The present administration as well as the minister of solid minerals came up with licenses and gave it without even the knowledge of the state but then we the state came up with our own executive order to say that whoever has a license and is going to do something, we don’t want you to be taking the minerals in raw form out of Nasawara State.
“We said to them, please we want you to build something, a factory, and that’s what they did within this short period because they saw the amount of deposit that they didn’t want to joke with it. We worked together, we provided part of the land, and other things like security. Then they started building the factory.”
This factory has also brought about employment opportunities for the indigenes of the state. “As I’m talking to you, they are over 1000 Nasawara State indigenes who are working right now at this particular site.”
The governor explained the measures put to ensure that the factory doesn’t cause an environmental hazard to the people of Nasawara State, including building a dam.
“We had the Environmental Impact Analysis. One of the reasons we did this is because they came up with what is going to be the reclamation of the area.
“The water from that dam is not going to be allowed to flow into the communities, it is going to be used there. There will be no water usage going back to the community because that is where the contamination comes from.”
Nancy Mbamalu
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