By Abubakar Baba Ahmad.
Government at all levels have been advised to establish Mineral Resources Processing Centres in all Political Wards towards providing jobs to the teaming youth and taking back ungoverned territories from non-state actors.
A Professor of Industrial Design, with Specialisation on Ceramics at the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University ATBU Bauchi Abdullahi Adinoyi Umar gave the advice while presenting a paper at the institutions 46th Inaugural Lecture held at Yelwa Campus in Bauchi.
The paper titled A Disaggregated Approach to Ceramics Raw Materials Beneficiation and its Socioeconomic Impacts in Nigeria, Professor Abdullahi Umar said with 774 local governments, Nigeria can provide jobs for about eight million youth by establishing minerals cluster centres at every political ward to mine and process the abundant mineral deposits in their localities.
He said unless the government and private sector establish such clusters like quarry or provide soft loans to youth to procure simple machines for mineral processing, non-state actors may end up recruiting them for evil deeds.
“If we can use the structure ‘s that are available however weak through the LGAs and states to establish clusters where the youth would be involved in mineral processing, they’ll be there and it will create about 7 to 8 million jobs in my estimation and it will keep them busy, it will keep them out of mischief, but importantly if you don’t do that, you are likely to have a situation where others with evil intentions can as well employ them to work for them t9 extract the minerals to sell snd procure srms during the insurgency ‘”, Professor Abdullahi advises.
Abdullahi Umar lamented the high import of ceramic products to include tablewares, sanitary wares, biomedical and bioceramic wares, and advanced products like auto spare parts to the tune of six hundred million dollars in 2019 alone.
The Professor of Ceramics who said the country has over forty recorded solid minerals with proliferation of moribund processing industries, called for legislative reforms on mining and job creation, financial incentives, capacity building and acquisition of low-tech machineries to resuscitate the ceramic production and reverse heavy imports.
Reading the Citation of the Inaugural Lecturer, the Vice Chancellor ATBU, Professor Ibrahim Garba challenged academics in the university to initiate solutions based papers of global standard in order to ensure consistency in the delivery of Public Lectures for which the academic environment especially ATBU is known for over the years.
“You’re all aware of the limbo our Inaugural Lectures faced over the years, the zeal to uphold this culture has alluded us for a long period of time while lectures held only sporadically and not sequentially. The time to bring it to life is now and we are fully back with forceful swing and the university is not going to lag behind other universities in the pursuit of academic excellence”, the ATBU VC says.
The Chairman of Ceremonies Committee and Deputy Vice Chancellor Academics Professor Sani Kunya acknowledged the slow pace in which Inaugural Lectures are held at the institution of recent and expressed optimism that the fourty sixth edition will strengthen the resolve of Professors to ensure more of such are held at the university.
The Inaugural Lecture which saw dozens of Professors and PhD holders supervised by the Inaugural Lecturer, also had in attendance friends, family and relatives of the accomplished scholar including the Chief Judge of Bauchi State Justice Rabi Umar in attendance.
