The Nigerian Mining Cadastre Office (NMCO) held its first ever Twitter Space to engage with members of the public on Tuesday November 5, 2024 from 11am-3pm . In the pioneer Twitter Space hosted by the Nigeria Mining Cadastre office, Broadcaster Hajia Kemi Aseku, anchored a conversation with the Director General, Engr Simon Obadiah Nkom on the Role of the Nigerian Mining Cadastre office in the Nigerian Mining Sector.
The Space started at quarter past 11:00am with the Anchor introducing the CEO of the agency. The floor was opened for questions and several concerned stakeholders raised various issues which were addressed by Engry Nkom.
Engr Nkom traced the functions of the mining Cadastre from its history as a unit under the Department of Mines to its establishment under the Minerals and Mining Act 2007 while highlighting the evolution of the Agency and its computerisation with support from the world bank. He explained that the Law had stipulated the agency’s role along with the provisions for its establishment.
“The mines department under the ministry was the one issuing liscence and was the one supervising the activities and equally involved with so many things but because of the reforms it was necessary to separate those powers. The Mining Act came in and that’s where the NMCO was Established. From that point the role of the mining Cadastre is simply the administration and management of mineral titles around Nigeria for all Minerals apart from oil and gas”
He stated the different mining liscences and broke down the process of acquiring them and how long each liscence would last, emphasising the digitisation of the Agency’s activities including the recording and acquisition process of mining liscences.
“The Law makes it mandatory that every application that is submitted to the cadastre should be processed within one month.”
Engr Nkom Also simplified technical terms such as Cadastre and explained the quantity of Cadastre for different kinds of Liscences.
“A layman can describe the cadastre as squares, The country is divided into squares it simply means that it is more organised rather than having irregular polygons of liscences scattered here and there . A cadastre is 500 metres by 500 metres. The Least a person can get is one cadastre depending on the liscence. A Cadastre is equivalent to 20 football fields”
After about an hour of discussions the space was opened up to listeners who had questions and several persons raised issues relating to mining liscence acquisition which Engr Nkom addressed. A recording of the space is available on the Cadastre’s Twitter page.
