Governor Bello Matawalle has announced that foreigners are buying gold and other precious mineral resources with arms in Zamfara state which he governs.
The Zamfara State Governor who disclosed this after presenting some gold bars and other precious stones mined in his State to President Muhammadu Buhari said his administration decided to embrace the Presidential Artisanal Gold Mining Development Initiative to stop the criminal act being championed by illegal miners in the state.
Matawalle said “It’s very important to us as a government, particularly, the issue of insecurity, to know the root cause of insecurity. Zamfara state is blessed with many minerals resources and some people outside the country come in to buy gold and other precious stones and sometimes instead of paying people, they pay back with arms. I did some investigations. So, the state government will be buying some of these minerals so that we can block that chain. So, now the state government is engaging the miners. We’ll be buying some of this gold from them with the limited resources we have. “