Lawmaker representing Okene II state constituency, Hon. Zakari Yusuf has called on members of the state legislative house to enact laws that will regulate the activities of miners in the state.
Hon. Zakari made the call at a plenary on Wednesday while contributing to a motion of urgent public importance on illegal mining activities in Omala.
He said, the rate at which foreigners and other unknown locals illegally mine and cart away the state valuable minerals with it’s attendants environmental hazard has call for serious concern, hence, concerted efforts must be made to check the ugly trend.
He maintained that the state assembly need laws that would henceforth allow state government to approve any sale of land to mining companies by communities who are usually deceived into agreements with no adequate briefing and has no knowledge on the actual mineral deposits in their area.
“The effects of their mining activities also creates serious environmental hazards noting that if the mineral deposits in the state are properly harnessed through the right channels, Kogi state would confidently carryout it functions without necessarily have to depend on monthly federal allocations,” he said.
Therefore, he is strongly in support of the motion calling for suspension of all mining activities in Omala local government pending investigation as presented by representative Yahaya Umar.
In another development, the assembly member also contributed to a motion on Okunchi road accident in Adavi local government. In his presentation, Hon. Zakari condole the families of the accident victims and pray for quick recoveries of the injured ones and posit that it is an avoidable incidence. While commending the former governor Alh. Yahaya Bello for meticulously reconstructing the federal road to modern standard so as to remove situation like this, there’s need for more regulations and enforcement of road guidelines to permanently put this ugly incidence to check.
After exhaustive deliberation by assembly members, the house resolved to call on state government to ensure diversion of trucks and heavy duty vehicles through alternative routes of Itakpe to Checkpoint road as a measure of curbing accident on Okene-Nagazi axis of the federal highway.
