Unmasking Economic Exploitation: Halting Illegal Resource Extraction for Nigeria’s Prosperity

In the past, the West came to Africa without permission, and they called it missionary and exploration ventures. When they settled in, they became lords and forcefully subdued our kingdoms and cultural heritages. In the process, they ravaged our economic spaces. They stole our resources (human and material) to lay the foundation for building their countries as we know them today. Sadly, we cannot enter their countries in this century without being ridiculed.

It is, therefore, absurd that we see different foreign entities in the nooks and crannies of Nigeria who are engaged in the illegal mining of our mineral resources, and our security border agents allow them to cart the stolen loot out of our country unchecked. Can any Nigerian go to the forests of the West or Asia to engage in illegal lumber businesses and be allowed to ship the stolen log of wood to Nigeria the way the Chinese are doing in Cross River State?

Foreigners, especially from Asia, now come to Nigeria to illegally mine gold, tin, lithium, columbine, diamonds, lead, tantalum, and tungsten and steal crude through local fronts, and we are still determining how they get out of the country. BAT government does not need to overtax Nigerians to obtain the necessary resources to run Nigeria.

How can we explain a situation in which an illegal bunkering vessel entered as far as the precinct of Warri before being arrested with hundreds of thousands of barrels of Nigeria’s crude oil? How did it get so close to talking less about stealing crude oil?

Nigeria has no business being poor. Suppose the government can stop illegal mining and illegal crude oil bunkering and force the foreign interests interested in our mineral resources to site their factories in Nigeria; in less than four years, we shall be great again.

Grace and peace!!!