Nasir el-Rufai, governor of Kaduna state, says a single local government in the state has more gold than the entirety of South Africa.
Speaking at the opening of the Kaduna economic and investment forum in the state on Wednesday, el-Rufai said solid minerals would attract as much as N40 billion.
“On solid minerals, you’ve seen the presentation, the minerals we have in Kaduna, but they missed out a very important mineral: gold,” he said.
“We’ve just confirmed that Kaduna state, indeed Birnin Gwari local government alone, has more gold than South Africa. This is proven, this is verifiable; we have all the data and we are collaborating with the federal ministry of solid mineral.”
He said the investment in mining gold would also focus on the local miners and help them improve and make money.
“To ensure that we bring international companies that would invest billions of naira in Birnin Gwari, to exploit our gold and export it, so that Kaduna state and Nigeria gets the benefits.
“But more than that, these companies, would also take the local miners, and formalise them and train them, so that they would all continue to make money.
“This is the model we are pursuing and we think about 40 billion would be attracted in solid minerals.”
