Nigeria plans to set up the Nigerian Solid Minerals Corporation, a State-backed company to help attract investments into the extraction of gold, coal, iron-ore, bitumen, lead, limestone and baryte, a minister said on Sunday.
Alake did not give a timeframe for when the new company would be set up. Existing enterprises - the National Iron-Ore Company and the Bitumen Concessioning Programme - will be reviewed to fit into the new company while a mines police force will be active from October to detect illegal mining, he said.
Tinubu inherited a struggling economy with record debt, shortages of foreign exchange and fuel, a weak naira currency, inflation at a near two-decade high, skeletal power supplies and falling oil production due to years of underinvestment, crude-oil theft and pipeline vandalism.