The Doubtful Proposal Credited To GeoScan GmBH – Ishola Ninuola

My first reaction to the doubtful proposal credited to GeoScan GmBH was to do a rejoinder to this phoney piece the day it first appeared on this platform; I think 2/11/23 it was? And just immediately, I had a rethink that asked me to wait to see if members on this platform would appropriately respond first. My reason is that if any group of geological scientists and engineers are privileged, given their past cumulative experience to comment on this kind of specialised matter and guide their nation, it should be members on this professional platform; and I’m happy to state this morning that I have not been disappointed, from comments I’ve seen on this platform today, some, since the weekend.

Members might not realise it, our generation of professionals were highly privileged to have participated in the very green mineral raw material development projects we had since the early ’70s. It include the whole basket of aeromagnetic surveys, ground follow-ups; vertical electric soundings (VES) surveys in selected sedimentary basins throughout Nigeria; gravity surveys of selected targets; subsequent electromagnetic surveys of selected targets; various drilling campaigns all over the country; bulk-sample industrial scale test of samples, under industrial conditions for various furnaces and reactors, etc, etc.

If we might be reminded, our over-all mandate was to explore for raw materials throughout the Federal territory of Nigeria, and advice its Federal Government on whether it is feasible for Nigeria to develop a steel industry of its own. And our resounding answer to government at the time, after about 8-9 years of the above listed projects was that it was feasible for Nigeria to start its own steel sector. If we may remind ourselves again, the steel industry is estimated to consume about 33% of all known mineral raw materials. So, if we, under the auspices of the then Nigerian Steel Development Authority (NSDA) at the time, could send a positive answer back to the then Nigerian Government after this exhaustive work, then, we are qualified to be referred to as experts on this matter, in all humility. At the time, our project was about the biggest, singular, mineral raw material development project, going on in Africa. Perhaps close to the Nigerian effort is the Egyptian effort at the time.

But tragically, no sooner that Nigeria started attaining this milestone that its political elites around 1979, came in, and started the unfortunate demolition of this worthwhile industrial base, that has continued up till today. Today, Egypt with which Nigeria started is reportedly producing 5-6 million tons/year steel, Nigeria is tragically producing about 330 thousand tons/year steel (from latest figure available to us), most of it from small furnaces scavenging for scrap metals, all over the place. We state all these here not to deride anyone, but to clearly state where the rain started biting Nigeria, so that she would know where to start retracing her efforts.

It must be acknowledged that this national effort at the time also received collaborations from several other national and international organizations, including Messrs Geological Surveys of Nigeria; Technoexport/Tiajproexport of the then USSR; the Universities; the Nigeria Mining and GeoSciences Society, (NMGS), etc.

For some unknown entity to suddenly emerge now to claim that only 10% of the Nigerian territory is explored, is a tragic lie! It is an insult over the cumulative knowledge and experience of the Nigerian Mining Industry, since about the year 1900. How did they arrive at 10%? How did they estimate that this 10% explored territory contains minerals worth $700 billion? How did they estimate that Nigeria’s untapped gold reserves alone is worth $3 trillion? We are constrained to humbly sound the warning here that this sounds like the beginning again of how Nigeria was set up for the tragic P&ID fraud by unknown ghost writers and fortune pedlars.

We plead with all Nigerian patriotic stakeholders to request Nigerian authorities in charge mineral resources development, to please purse, and consult widely with its own Nigerian Experts first, a lot of whom are still very much alive. The opinions expressed here to contact institutional organs of the Mining Sector, including COMEG, to call a specialised conference on this emergency is why one thinks it is about time to go public with the opinion humbly expressed here. Nigeria obviously can not afford another P&ID-type Scam : her economy would probably not survive it!

Lagos, Nov, 2023.

p/s : Addendum: the first step Nigeria takes that is common in these tragic missteps in policy formulation is that the Nigerian policy elites are first made to isolate their own experts and ‘fence them off’; then all kinds of misinformation/ disinformation is fed to the Nigerian public. The policy elite is then alienated and finished off as it were. This is the pattern that has been observable since the late ’70s-early ’80s when this unfortunate trend emerged. A social critic then late ‘Bala Usman in a writing at the time called it the ‘Consultancy Fraud’. Its a system where operators of the Nigerian bureaucracy fenced off Nigerian experts and commissioned phoney consultancy reports, not worth the papers on which they are written, charged the Nigerian treasury in hard currency, and defrauded the country.

And no country would first develop incapacitating and fencing off its own experts!!! And as a pleasant relief very recently, the Nigerian leader in a first retreat with his new cabinet has charged that cabinet to first work with Nigerian experts. And ironically, the adviser for ‘Policy Co-ordination’ who among other duties would supervise this policy we understand is no other than the daughter of late Bala Usman; Khadiza Bala Usman.