Also available
Interview:
Corporate Nigeria (CN) talks to
Arc. Musa Mohammed Sada
Honourable Minister of Mines
and Steel Development
Fully Opened to Foreign Investors
CN: Mr. Sada, you were a professional architect until being appointed Commissioner of Works, Housing and Transportation for Katsina State in 2007. You were appointed Minister of Mines and Steel Development in April. What personal skills do you believe you can bring to the post?
Arc. Musa Mohammed Sada: The skills that I believe I can bring to help me in running my present office as Minister of Mines and Steel Development are skills picked up from my training as an Architect and also the various experience from my working life.To train as an architect requires a rigorous and in-depth study in the physical and social sciences which prepared me for the various challenges I am to face later in life. After gaining a lot of experience as an architect, I also went back to do a Master in Business Administration course with strong bias in Management. This gave me further insight in the management of material and men to achieve the desired result in any given situation.
I have successfully undertaken developmental projects with various levels of complexities, and have achieved reasonable levels of success for all of them. I have always been a target oriented person. My experience as a member of the Katsina State Executive Council and Commissioner of Works, Housing and Transport was also another challenge (I take every appointment as a challenge). In the course of which I was able to pick up a few skills that I can use in my future assignments.
One of this is that there is no alternative to hard work as a way of succeeding in any assignment. Also, whatever you do, it is for the benefit of mankind, and that can be the difference between doing the right and the wrong thing. I also believe that there is a good and bad side of every human being, what you need to do as a manager of persons is to exploit the good side of everybody you work with for better results on the task at hand.
What role do you believe projects such as the World Bank’s Sustainable Management of Mineral Resources Project can play in helping Nigeria’s economy to diversify away from its reliance on the oil and gas sector?
The World Bank’s Sustainable Management of Mineral Resources Project (SMMRP) is very crucial towards the development of the Mining industry to enable it make a meaningful contribution to Nigeria’s socio-economic development through diversification from the oil and gas Sector.
The on-going reform programme in Nigeria’s Minerals and Metals Sector are driven through with financing from the Federal Government of Nigeria and the World Bank assisted grant of USD120 million.
Through the World Bank project institutional frame works such as Nigeria’s Minerals and Mining Act of 2007 was put in place to bring mining industries in the country to be in line with global best practices.
The National Institute of Mining and Geosciences in Jos, Plateau State was established and being run through the World Bank assisted project. This is to supply the needed expertise to the industry.
Efforts are being made by the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development in conjunction with the Ministry of Justice and the National Assembly for the enactment of the Act establishing the Institute, to enable it have the necessary legal backing to do many things.
Through the World Bank support for the development of the Solid Minerals Sector, grants are given to the Artisanal and Small Scale Miners to facilitate their operations and address some mining communities’ social needs. Training and capacity building is also available to them.
Download the complete chapter as PDF
