By Newsmata
Faced with severe backlash over his allegation that retired military Generals, in cahoots with some foreigners were illegally mining Nigeria’s solid minerals, especially gold, Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole, Chairman, Senate Committee on Interior, and former National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has accused the media of taking his comments out of context in their reportage.
Oshiomhole, a former governor of Edo State, accused the media of not appropriately reporting the words he used, stressing that he never gave a sweeping indictment of retired military Generals.
Appearing Tuesday night on Arise Television’s Prime Time programme, Oshiomhole, in his opening statement, said “I think sometimes, the media take statements out of context…What I don’t like is the word I heard you say – retired generals. I said some generals”.
Rehashing what he said at plenary which elicited angry reactions from some retired military officers, the former national president of the Nigeria Labour Congress, said “One correction that must be made, and this is not fair on the part of those who report. At no time did I say the retired generals; I have many friends who are retired generals and who are suffering, who can’t change batteries of 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 as a matter of fact not correct to suggest to anyone that all retired generals are involved in a particular crime. It’s not possible to say so. That will bother on reckless, sweeping generalisation. That’s not what I said. I said the problem is that some, and I still believe it to be so; I know 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 the returning officer in a primary election when I was National Chairman of APC, in his report back to me as Chairman after presenting the report of the primary, he said, Adams, you are worried about the primaries but what he has seen is far more serious than that and that the banditry that it is evolving, or kidnapping as it then was; there was no use of the word banditry then. That those kidnappers, in the first instance, are in the services of very powerful, in his own word, some powerful retired generals and they use chopper; this was a retired general telling me, of the illegal act.
“As they take the mined gold and whatever it is that they are mining, they drop weapons to civilians who have been trained on the use of those weapons to provide protection for the illegal mining activity. He added that sometimes, of course they offer that protection; some other time, they divert these arms to now terrorise innocent citizens, or sometimes, kidnapping.
“I then said to him, there is no way I can comprehend his story because I have no military training or security training and I pleaded with him to do a summary, not more than two, maximum, three pages. That I will submit as chairman of the ruling party at that time, I will submit to the president who incidentally is a retired general before becoming the president of Nigeria so, he would understand the issues clearer. And I advised him, put your phone number so that the president can call you if he so wishes and you can give him this detailed security dimension because he warned me that if that thing is not checkmated, what is happening in the Northeast would be a child’s play.
“And he told me this gold comes from that area all the way to the Southwest; by the way, up to Osun State and elsewhere. I also know, in my part of the state (Edo), there are solid minerals.
“And so, I took this letter, and I promised him, because I saw a patriotic officer, though retired but not tired. His loyalty to Nigeria is not weakened, and I gave it to the then president. And I said sir, go through it, it is self-explanatory; my advice, 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 knows and his feelings about what will happen if this is not nipped in the bud.
“That’s why I said when we lament, as the committee was doing, that we are not exploiting our solid minerals, I said that it is not true; that it is being exploited, but it’s being done on a large scale illegally. I stand by that. I know it to be the truth because this general has no business flattering me, and I also know that at some other level, there are pockets of… everybody talks about some nationalities coming in to do illegal mining. They are carting away this, carting away that. Just like I argued when I was in the NLC when NNPC used to talk about smuggling and I said something of such volume, how can it be smuggled out and nobody sees it?
“So, you can’t have that scale of illegal activity without men and women of power and resources. And I said in that same statement in the Senate, can you imagine who can afford a chopper? And its not every chopper that can carry out that kind of activity. It cannot be a civilian chopper. A chopper that can go regularly to carry arms, drop; carry mined items, whether they are gold, and take them out to a location where they prepare them, and they pass through our borders”.
Oshiomhole however contended that the alleged illegal mining activities were not limited to such “very powerful well connected retired military generals. He said he believed that “there are also non-Generals who are powerful who are also providing cover for these foreigners”.
He would however not drag the present government into the very sensitive issue. The former governor said, “What I can say is this; there is no need to talk about the present government. If there is a disease that had 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 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, until it is dealt with, my point is, 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 at the floor of the senate to say, we have to find courage if you know the story is edited.
“We will draw Mr. President’s attention to this scale of abuse, this scale of looting of Nigeria’s solid minerals by foreigners, or even by Nigerians themselves. And that is the way it should be. Every day, we sit in the Senate, partly in the plenary; we pass motions urging government, not necessarily because it started the problem; not necessarily because he’s not doing something about the matter, but that we want more action. That is why I went on to emphasise”.
Acknowledging actions being taken by the federal government to address the problem, he said he was aware the current minister of solid minerals had taken steps by launching the mining martials 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 somebody in the ministry 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 and he has set up some martials so that what is happening is probably within his control”.
Senator Oshiomhole expressed concern that those protecting the illegal miners have more sophisticated weapons than that of the marshals, based on what he was told by the retired General, stressing that “I don’t think those marshals are so well equipped with the same level of offensive weapon to counter them”.
He would however like to see 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”.
Oshiomhole cautioned that with the same force JTF was deployed in the Niger Delta to deal with anyone involved in illegal oil bunkering, “let it not be seen as if when it comes to oil, we are ready because you are touching our vein, and then this other one, because we don’t have the numbers, we seem to think that we can use less force”.
He suggested that because the people involved in illegal mining are powerful, “only superior power can neutralise them. I say so because for me, this is what the president will expect of a loyal senator; to draw his attention so that when those who are being dealt with, – you know this country, somebody will bring in political motive. Oh, this General, maybe this retired General, or this retired permsec, this former labour leader, one comrade, and maybe because he made a statement last week, that is why they are dealing with him.
“Let people know that these are serious economic crimes. Part of the complexities of dealing with criminality in Nigeria is the ethnic dimension that is evoked and sometimes compounded by political affiliation. And once they evoke the ethnic dimension, and even sometimes compounded by religion, and then summarised by political affiliation, everybody becomes blind”.