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The Federal Government has intensified efforts to secure the nation’s natural resources as the presidential inter-ministerial committee held an expanded meeting with service chiefs.
The inter-ministerial committee, chaired by the Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dr. Dele Alake, met with the service chiefs in Snubs, on Thursday.
Recall that President Bola Tinubu had during last week’s Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, established an inter-ministerial committee to draw up a blueprint for securing the country’s natural resources, including solid minerals, forests and marine economy. The committee held its maiden meeting last Friday.
Giving highlights of the expanded meeting, Alake emphasized that the committee’s meeting with service chiefs and heads of all security agencies as well as Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) was a follow up on the earlier one to get inputs for developing a workable strategy to effectively secure Nigeria’s natural resources, in line with the presidential mandate.
“Today, we have deliberated exhaustively. We have covered all the issues, all the grounds. Certain decisions have been made, and there is going to be another follow-up meeting because the security agencies are going to give us the framework of execution of our mandate. That has been the crux of today’s deliberations. The security agencies, the service chiefs, NSA’s office, the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) are going to form a smaller committee to give us the workplan, execution modalities and we will be meeting in another fortnight,” the minister added.
Restating the position of the federal government on the tragic explosion in Ibadan, Alake stressed that the report of the ongoing forensic investigations by security agencies is being awaited before necessary action is taken.
At the meeting were the Ministers for Environment, Balarabe Lawal; Marine and Blue Economy, Gboyega Oyetola; Defence, Abubakar Badaru: Interior, Hon. Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo and Police Affairs (State), Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim.
Heads of security agencies in attendance include Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Kayode Egbetokun; Commandant-General of Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Dr. Ahmed Audi; representatives of Chief of Air Staff and Chief of Naval staff, Air-Vice Marshall Abdulkadir Abubakar and Rear Admiral I. Abbas, among others.